Page 8 - SE Outlook Regions 2024

Balkan states, of which five are currently candidate countries. Progress has been mixed; Montenegro is the current frontrunner and the election of a new government in 2023 may lead to a revitalisation of the reform process after several years of political instability. Serbia’s progress has been impeded by both its unresolved conflict with Kosovo and its refusal to join Western sanctions on Russia. Both Albania and North Macedonia are being held back by bilateral disputes with their EU member neighbours.
There was better news for Moldova, which at the end of 2023 got the green light to start accession negotiations – barely a year and half after it was accepted as a candidate country in an accelerated process that also saw Ukraine admitted as a candidate. Increased Western support for Moldova after Russia’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine should help one of Europe’s poorest economies emerge from the dual shocks of the coronacrisis and war. Moldova remains one of the geopolitical battlegrounds in the struggle between Russia and the West, despite President Maia Sandu’s efforts to drag it into the Western camp.
1.0 Political outlook 1.1 Politics - Albania
In 2023, Albania’s ruling Socialist Party, led by Prime Minister Edi Rama, marked its tenth anniversary of coming to power, and the opposition looks as far away from making a political comeback as ever.
Their failure to make headway at the ballot boxes – either in the last general election in 2021 or the local elections in May 2023 – have led
opposition figures to take an increasingly violent approach.
De facto opposition leader Sali Berisha has threatened a wave of protests and civil disobedience. There have been violent scenes inside the parliament on several occasions this autumn, when opposition MPs repeatedly built a chair barricade in the centre of the chamber, set off flares and in some cases set fire to papers, forcing security to shut down the session.
These were stepped up after Berisha and his son-in-law were charged in connection with a land privatisation case.
Despite the fiery scenes, the opposition has been in disarray for the last two years, ever since Berisha started his quest to take back control of
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