Albania in the European Perspective. The Fulfillment of the Copenhagen Criteria, A Necessary Condition Towards the EU

The concretization of the European perspectives for the Western Balkans presented at the high level meeting in Thessaloniki in 2003, known as the Thessaloniki Agenda, is the cornerstone of the EU policy for the Western Balkans region and the fulfillment of the Copenhagen criteria is essential for the EU membership application. Since 2003, The European Commission checks the fulfilling of these criteria by the means of so-called progress reports. Based on a 10 -year reporting period by the European Commission to Albania, I have focused on the performance of the political criteria for highlighting not only the chronological developments in every field with the highlighted achievements and problems, but also to analyze the tasks that the EU has left each year and the role that Albanian political factor has played in the meeting of this criteria. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2014.v3n4p3