Costs and Benefits of European Integration — the Albanian Case

Abstrakt

Costs and Benefits of European Integration — The Albanian Case

Integration is a word very frequently used and probably one of the most fashionable in the present everyday life of the Balkan people. Politicians, artists, intellectuals speak about political, economical, cultural, European Integration as well as spiritual integration. The word integration is widely used, as much as there have been efforts to define or understand it by the general public, besides the fact that integration is perceived as something “good in nature,” especially the integration with Western community.
 Hence, one of the issues, which everybody agrees on in Albania and in the region is that the accession into the European Union is still the main objective of the region prospect. European integration is perceived as a solution of the major problems during the process of the socio-economic development of the countries of the region.
 The authors think that the efforts of the people of the region toward economic and democratic progress should not be simply treated as tools used to be “self-integrated” in the EU, but they rather have to be perceived as positive processes undertaken by each country during transition. Keeping an economic perspective, this paper aims to discuss the qualitative benefits and costs for Albanian economy, in its integration way toward the EU.