Albaniens Weg in die Europäische Union. Zwischen Konditionalität und partikularen Interessen

The EU integration process of Albania began in 1992. The country’s political class vowed immediately after the fall of communism, that it would decidedly strive to integrate Albania as soon as possible into the Euro-Atlantic structures. This ambition was welcomed by the EU and soon after supported by it with political and financial means. However, the process is pending until today. This research’s goal was to examine whether the outcomes of the process were in fact compatible with the given official conditionality or not. The study was grounded on the assumption that in such a complex process, both the institutional guidelines – enshrined in the Copenhagen conditionality – as well as the different conditionality-incompatible interests of the participating stakeholders are likely to have played a role for the results of the process. Taking into consideration this main assumption and the aim of this study, process-tracing was chosen to elaborate the topic. The main moments of the process were identified and the actors with the highest possible influence determined. The most important finding of this research was that the EU integration process of Albania was broadly running in accordance with the Copenhagen conditionality. Solely for two of the main moments an exception from this rule was observed.