Albania Between EU Norms and Turkish Pragmatism

This paper investigates Albania’s foreign policy orientation as a case of strategic duality, positioned between the norm-based conditionality of the European Union (EU) and Turkey’s pragmatic engagement. While the EU’s influence is rooted in normative frameworks demanding democratic reforms and institutional alignment, Turkey offers a flexible, interest-driven partnership with minimal political conditionality. Through qualitative analysis based on semi-structured expert interviews and document examination, the study explores how Albania balances these two external pressures. It introduces the concept of a hybrid foreign policy model to explain how Albania seeks short-term economic and political benefits from Turkey while preserving its long-term objective of EU integration. The findings shed light on how small states in transition maneuver between competing great power models, navigating between normative aspirations and pragmatic necessities.