Cluster 5, which deals with resources, agriculture and cohesion, will be opened at the seventh meeting of the Albania EU accession conference.
The cluster consists of chapters 11 (agriculture and rural development), 12 (food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary policy), 13 (fisheries and aquaculture), 22 (regional policy and coordination of structural instruments) and 33 (financial and budgetary provisions), Brussels announced.
Albania, which was granted candidate status in 2014, opened the first cluster in the negotiations (the basics) with the EU in October last year, which means that it has opened all clusters in about a year.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama described the opening of the last cluster in the negotiations as a “record achievement”.
He also said that nothing would stop Albania’s path to EU membership in 2030 and that the government’s goal is to complete the negotiation process by 2027, albaniandailynews.com reported.
Tirana’s ambitions are also supported by the fact that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni supported Albania’s plans to join the EU at a press conference yesterday after the first Italy-Albania summit in Rome.
Meloni announced that she would set a goal for political negotiations with Albania on joining the Union to begin in the first six months of 2028, when Italy will hold the EU presidency.
