Despite nature conservation concerns: EU opens negotiations with Albania

Brussels, Radolfzell. On 16 September 2025 the EU formally opened accession negotiations with Albania on Cluster 4, including Chapter 27 on Environment and Climate Change. While this is hailed as a milestone on Albania’s path to EU membership, the question is whether this step is timely and credible, given Albania’s recent backtracking on nature protection.

One emblematic case stands out, the construction of Vlora International Airport in the Vjosa-Narta Protected Landscape. This project began without a valid construction permit, without a credible Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) or Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), and advanced after the government changed the boundaries of a protected area to exclude the airport site. At the same time, Albania amended the Law on Protected Areas, weakening safeguards and opening the door to large-scale infrastructure and tourism projects inside technically protected areas.

These measures are not isolated missteps. They amount to a troubling pattern of undermining conservation rules precisely at a time when Albania is meant to be aligning its laws with the EU nature acquis. International institutions have already spoken, with the Bern Convention calling for suspension of the airport works, and the European Parliament warning against these legal changes. Yet construction continues and bent laws remain in force.

“Opening negotiations on the environment chapter now may set the dangerous precedent, that Albania can dismantle nature protection and still make progress in the accession negotiations,” said Gabriel Schwaderer, Executive Director of EuroNatur. “The EU must prove that Chapter 27 is not just a box to tick, but a real test of readiness to implement EU requirements.”

Solutions and next steps

Both, the EU and Albania carry responsibility to ensure that negotiations do not become a greenwashing exercise. The benchmarks set in the EU’s Common Position must be treated as non-negotiable conditions, and Albania must deliver concrete action:

• Repeal the harmful provisions of Law 21/2024 on Protected Areas and terminate the “strategic investments” carve-outs that allow development in ecologically sensitive areas. Reinstate full protection of Vjosa-Narta and other respective sites.  

• Suspend and review the works at the Vlora International Airport, subject the project to a credible EIA and SEA, and allow full public scrutiny before any further steps. 

• Fully enforce the Aarhus Convention, ensuring citizens and NGOs can access information, take part in decisions, and challenge unlawful projects in court.

• Adopt Directive-Specific Implementation Plans (DSIPs) with clear timelines, budgets, and enforcement measures for air, water, waste, nature, and climate laws.
 

For the EU, this means rigorous monitoring and political consistency, and no provisional closure of Chapter 27 until Albania has demonstrably met these conditions. For Albania, it means proving through actions, not empty promises, that it is ready to live up to the EU’s environmental standards.

“The benchmarks are clear, and now Albania must show that it can and will meet them. Protecting the Vjosa and Narta is not only a national duty, but a litmus test of whether the country is truly ready for Europe. Yet when projects like the Vlora airport proceed under flawed assessments, illegal practices and by violating protected areas, and when EU oversight falls short, the credibility of both Albania’s commitment and EU’s standards is at stake,”added Aleksandër Trajçe, Director of Protection and Preservation of Natural Environment in Albania (PPNEA).

“The opening of negotiations must mark the start of a real clean-up of Albania’s environmental governance, not the burial of its last wild landscapes under concrete. The EU has the tools, the benchmarks, but it must use them firmly. Geopolitical urgency cannot justify environmental impunity. Albania’s people, and Europe’s shared natural heritage, deserve nothing less,” said Viktor Berishaj, Senior Policy Officer at EuroNatur.