In the context of enlargement policy, the term "frontrunner" - referring to a country that is ahead of others in its progress towards EU membership - has been increasingly used in recent days. This is due to the fact that, for the first time, the label is being attributed to Albania, a country that has made rapid strides in its pre-accession process. Although it was granted candidate status as far back as June 2014, it only began accession negotiations in July 2022.
At that point, initial expectations were modest at best. However, since then - to the surprise of many, likely including the regime in Tirana - EU member states have agreed to open as many as four clusters, or 23 chapters. This achievement becomes even more significant when considering that Albania has accomplished in three years what Serbia has not in eleven years of negotiations. Serbia, by comparison, has opened only two clusters and 22 chapters. To understand how this happened, and what it means for Serbia, a closer analysis follows below.
Filling the void
From the beginning, the term "frontrunner" was almost exclusively reserved for Montenegro and Serbia. This was because they were the only Western Balkan countries that had managed to secure unanimous support from all EU member states to begin accession negotiations - something the others had not achieved, at least not until Russia’s aggression against Ukraine shifted the geopolitical landscape and gave new momentum to enlargement policy.
Montenegro began negotiations in June 2012 and had opened all chapters by December 2017. Serbia started negotiations two years later and has opened around two-thirds of its chapters. It was therefore unsurprising that these two countries were seen as potential members that would join the EU "in a package", as the difference in their level of preparedness was relatively small.
Indeed, in 2018, then-President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker stated that he saw both Montenegro and Serbia becoming EU members by 2025. That long-anticipated year has now arrived, yet neither Montenegro nor Serbia has reached that goal.
Part of the explanation for why Juncker’s prediction did not materialise lies in the enlargement fatigue among EU member states themselves (who did not necessarily share Juncker’s then newfound optimism), but also in the fact that Balkan countries showed little concern over the "slowness" of the process. The Commission's reports repeatedly pointed out that all candidates lacked key reforms, without exception.
However, since 2022, the difference between Montenegro and Serbia is that the former recognised the momentum created by the war in Ukraine and, despite unfavourable domestic political conditions, managed to form a stable government that sent an unambiguous pro-European message and embarked on much-needed reforms.
In contrast, Serbia continued to pursue its policy of "four pillars" while simultaneously facing the largest civil protests in its recent history, with key reforms still lacking. As a result, Montenegro received the IBAR (Interim Benchmark Assessment Report), meaning a positive evaluation of its fulfilment of rule-of-law benchmarks, while Serbia is still struggling to open Cluster 3 (competitiveness and inclusive growth). In such circumstances, it is no longer a secret that Serbia has lost its frontrunner status, while Albania recognised the opportunity and made strong strides to fill the gap.
What is Albania’s secret?
There is no doubt that Albania long shared Serbia’s scepticism regarding the likelihood of opening the door to EU membership. This partially explains their joint initiative with North Macedonia - the Open Balkan. Although the leaders of this initiative proclaimed a desire to pursue joint efforts for faster and deeper economic integration - both before membership and without necessarily relying on the EU - the reality is that its formation reflected a fatigue with the accession process among the candidates themselves.
The initiative long caused unease within the EU, which preferred to focus on a project under its own umbrella that had the backing of all candidates - the Common Regional Market. While Tirana, together with Belgrade and Skopje, never officially rejected this EU-supported plan, it was clear that the Open Balkan sent a message that, if membership was not on the horizon, regional countries could still find a way to cooperate independently of the Union.
However, following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Edi Rama made moves that significantly improved Albania’s European perspective.
As a first step, Albania extended unequivocal support to Ukraine. The country continued full alignment with the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy and implemented all sanctions. In this respect, Rama often acted as a spokesperson for the need to stand firmly with Ukraine and take a tough stance against Russia. His speech on this subject in September 2023, as President of the United Nations Security Council, attracted wide media attention and political significance. It sent a clear message that Albania, in these times of crisis, is a country the Union can unequivocally rely on, and that it is prepared to stand up to Russia if necessary.
Thus, Tirana was at the centre of European attention on 16 May 2025, when it successfully hosted the European Political Community summit. Although this format goes beyond the EU itself, it was no coincidence that Tirana was chosen as the venue, given that the primary aim of this initiative is to facilitate political dialogue contributing to the containment of Russian aggression. At a time when Chapter 31 has effectively become a "blocking chapter" - its fulfilment now crucial for further progress in negotiations, posing an added challenge for Serbia - for Albania, it has become an affirming chapter.
It is also significant that Edi Rama worked diligently and successfully on a public relations campaign to present Albania as a pro-European country with clear ambitions. Seeing that Montenegro had set itself the goal of fulfilling all membership criteria by the end of 2026, Albania adopted a similar approach and chose the end of 2027 as its target year. The European Commission has recognised both of these goals as ambitious but necessary and has pledged to support their achievement.
In addition, in 2023, Rama secured the opening of a new College of Europe campus in Tirana. This prestigious institution is widely regarded among European officials as the most esteemed centre for the study and teaching of European integration and values.
Finally, he also proved to be a pragmatic leader that same year by showing readiness to support Italy, a country struggling with migration flows, by agreeing to host an extraterritorial migrant centre on Albanian territory under Italian management. Although the model was not fully implemented in the end, it was of great political importance.
During the parliamentary elections in May 2025, Rama based his entire campaign on a key promise - EU membership in the near future. Thanks to these moves, Albania has positioned itself as a candidate that is not waiting for the door to be opened, but is confidently unlocking it through its own initiatives.
Does Albania have time to relax?
Despite its successful PR offensive, Albania has no time to relax. Andreas Schieder, the European Parliament's rapporteur for Albania, stated that the country "can rightly be called the frontrunner among EU membership candidates, but we are not at the finish line yet." He added that it is "crucial to continue on this path with the same pace and commitment, fighting corruption and strengthening the rule of law."
In other words, Albania has managed in a very short time to convince all member states of its pro-European orientation; however, what remains is the completion of ongoing reforms. The largest package of reforms for Albania concerned the vetting of judges, but the process cannot stop there.
According to the European Commission’s most recent report from October 2024, Albania is "moderately prepared" in the chapters related to the rule of law, having made only "some progress" in those areas. A European Parliament report from March 2025 also expressed concern about continued political interference and pressure on the judiciary. This indicates that considerable work remains before Albania can reach the level of Montenegro - currently the only candidate country actively closing its remaining chapters, and the only one that, at present, faces no clear obstacles to membership.
One may wonder how Albania was able to open such a significant number of clusters, despite still having much room for reform in the rule of law area. This can partly be explained by a methodological fact: Albania began negotiations only after the revised methodology was adopted in 2020.
According to that methodology, "the roadmap for the rule of law chapters, equivalent to previous action plans, will serve as the benchmark for opening." Thus, in 2023, Albania received a positive report on the fulfilment of this sole benchmark for opening, which paved the way for cluster openings.
This is the key difference from Serbia, which has numerous opening benchmarks spread across various clusters, since its criteria were set under the old rules. The distinction lies in the fact that the previous methodology required many crucial reforms to be fulfilled at the very beginning (ensuring a more even distribution of the remaining reforms throughout the later stages), whereas the revised approach prioritises swift cluster opening, with a stronger emphasis on implementing reforms after the opening.
Although it may sound trivial, the aforementioned methodological change actually carries political significance. If we imagine that the revised methodology had been in effect, say, from the moment Serbia began negotiations in 2014, it is almost certain that Serbia would have opened most of the clusters by now, given that, in that case, there would have been no benchmarks for their opening.
In contrast, for Albania, the bulk of the work comes after the clusters are opened, that is, before the chapters are closed. The idea behind this approach was to provide strong political support to candidate countries on their path to membership by making the process less vulnerable to blockages and conditionality, while also sending a message to citizens that the process is dynamic and credible.
Still, even though Serbia agreed in 2021 to play by these new rules - which explains why clusters were introduced in its case as well - those same rules could not retroactively eliminate the benchmarks already established for opening clusters. Therefore, it can be concluded that the cases of Albania and Serbia are not directly comparable. Strictly speaking, this tells us that Albania may indeed have a higher number of open chapters, but this does not necessarily mean it is more prepared for membership than Serbia in terms of adoption and implementation of EU law.
A lesson for Serbia
From the above, it becomes clear that Albania is, in political terms, the true frontrunner, while technically it is close to, or even behind Serbia. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to overlook the significance of the major strides Albania has made in a short period of time. Although no benchmarks are now set for the opening of clusters in its case, this does not mean that a member state could not have exercised its right of veto during the adoption of a common position on the cluster. Therefore, Albania's progress should be interpreted as a sign of broad political recognition by EU member states of Tirana’s commitment to seize the current momentum.
This sends an important message to Serbia, which still needs to demonstrate a similar level of political will and commitment. Serbia must understand that the accession process is no longer purely a matter of technical preparedness but is also a political process that requires clear, sincere, and multi-layered actions - actions that will be unambiguously seen as steps toward full membership. In the case of prolonged stagnation, Albania could, in a relatively short time, surpass Serbia even from a technical standpoint. Therefore, the current situation calls for Belgrade to adopt a smart policy that learns from Tirana’s approach - and thereby regain its place among those considered frontrunners in the EU accession process.