Albania has, overall, met interim benchmarks in the “fundamentals” area of its EU accession talks, the EU said after the eighth meeting of the Accession Conference with Albania.
The fundamentals cluster — known as cluster 1 in the EU’s accession framework — covers the functioning of democratic institutions, public administration reform, rule of law chapters and economic criteria, the Council of the EU noted in a statement Tuesday night.
The confirmation means the EU and Albania are now in a position to start closing negotiating chapters.
Marilena Raouna, Cyprus’s deputy minister for European affairs, said the step confirmed the fulfilment of the interim benchmarks for the fundamentals cluster and described enlargement as “a geopolitical necessity for the EU and a top priority for the Cyprus presidency.”
What happens next in the talks
All negotiating clusters with Albania were opened in Accession Conferences held in 2024 and 2025, including the most recent cluster — “Resources, agriculture and cohesion” — on 17 November 2025, the Council said.
Monitoring will continue throughout the negotiations on how Albania aligns with and implements the EU acquis — the body of EU law — and relevant European standards.
The EU also set benchmarks for the provisional closure of the chapters within the fundamentals cluster, and the Accession Conference will return to cluster 1 at an appropriate moment.
Under the EU’s revised accession methodology introduced in 2020, negotiating chapters are grouped into six thematic clusters, with the fundamentals cluster opened first and closed last, and progress under it determining the overall pace of negotiations.
