The European Parliament adopted its 2025 own-initiative report on Albania by 483 votes to 103 , with 70 abstentions. The broad majority was built by EPP, S&D, Renew, Greens/EFA, and most of ECR voting in favour; ESN and most of PfE voted against, while The Left largely abstained. As a non-legislative own-initiative resolution, the text carries no direct legal effect, but it represents Parliament's formal political position on Albania's accession progress and is intended to press the Commission and Council on the issues it identifies. The amendment votes revealed two distinct lines of division. On minority rights — six amendments seeking to add specific protections for the Greek national minority, covering property, education, religious heritage and church autonomy — the right-wing groups ECR, PfE and ESN supported the additions while the political centre (EPP, S&D, Renew) and the Greens/EFA voted against. All six fell, each by margins exceeding 220 votes. The centre's position was not that minority rights are unimportant, but that these particular formulations — several of which directly named the Greek minority and tied progress explicitly to EU-accession relations — went further than the text the mainstream majority was willing to endorse. On environmental and governance questions related to a large-scale development in the Vjosa-Narta protected area, the cleavage shifted. A more expansive amendment adding governance and civil-liberties elements was rejected; but two narrower amendments — one echoing Commission cautions and linking environmental-rule alignment to accession prospects, the other calling for a moratorium and EU-compliant environmental impact assessments — both passed, carried by S&D, Renew, Greens/EFA, and The Left. On migration, an amendment that would have stated that Italian detention centres in Albania should be closed once Albania accedes was rejected by 135 votes, opposed by EPP, ECR, PfE and ESN. An amendment demanding Albania reject revisionism and territorial claims was also rejected, supported only by ECR, PfE and ESN.
Source🔗 Open source ↗