Page 10 - bne IntelliNews Southeastern Europe Outlook 2025

Albania moved forward on its long path towards EU accession in 2024. It has been formally decoupled from North Macedonia, whose progress has been held back by a bilateral dispute with its neighbour Bulgaria. Meanwhile, Albania advanced to the negotiation stage with the opening of its fundamentals cluster.
Since Albania's first intergovernmental conference in 2022, it has committed to implementing the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA). Yet further reforms are necessary in the rule of law, anti-corruption and the protection of fundamental rights, as pointed out in the latest Enlargement Package from the European Commission. Despite the government’s recent corruption amnesty raising concerns, Albania has progressed in anti-money laundering, exiting the FATF “grey list” in October 2023.
1.2 Politics – Bosnia & Herzegovina
Bosnia’s political life in 2024 remained dominated by strong internal conflicts, caused mainly by the ruling SNSD party in Republika Srpska and the entity’s President Milorad Dodik. Dodik, a strong supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic, has been preventing any progress in EU-oriented reforms and has called for steps towards the secession of his entity.
Bosnia comprises two autonomous entities – the Muslim-Croat Federation and Republika Srpska. Each of them has its own institutions and there are also state-level bodies.
For years, Dodik has been threatening Republika Srpska’s secession from Bosnia, saying the Serb entity must again become part of Serbia. He has also defied state-level institutions and the authority of the international community’s high representative Christian Schmidt.
In March, Bosnia was granted EU candidate status. However, to begin talks, the country still needs to complete a set of key reforms.
Although the leaders of the state-level ruling coalition, which includes the SNSD, agreed in December to unblock the reform process, the Serb party did not respect its part of the agreement.
This situation is expected to continue through 2025 unless Dodik steps down and a different, pro-Western, party takes control in Republika Srpska. For the moment, there are no political projects with the potential to oust the SNSD from power. However, Dodik is on trial for rejecting acts of Schmidt and the state-level constitutional court. If sentenced, he could go to prison, and that would put an end to his political career.
10 SE Outlook 2025 www.intellinews.com