The EU adopted a new enlargement strategy for the Western Balkans countries in 2018, provided a time frame for Serbia and Montenegro potentially to join the Union by 2025, and outlined the next steps for accession for Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and North Macedonia. In March 2020, the EU gave the green light to the opening of accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania, and also introduced a new reformed ‘accession talks’ framework. The strengthening of the rule of law, fighting corruption and organised crime are the cornerstones of the EU-Western Balkans strategy of 2018 and the new accession talks framework of 2020. This article examines the latest enlargement policy developments in 2018–2020 by conceptualising how the EU promotes the rule of law in the Western Balkans thorough its new enlargement policy package. Furthermore, the article offers an in-depth analysis of the case of Albania, where the EU has experimented with some of its latest enlargement-policy ideas in regard to the rule of law. The article also offers some proposals and insights on how the EU rule of law initiative of 2018 can be improved, in order to become more transformative in strengthening the rule of law in countries of the Western Balkans.

欧盟于2018年对西巴尔干国家采取了新的扩大战略，为塞尔维亚和黑山有可能在2025年加入欧盟提供了时间表，并概述了阿尔巴尼亚，波斯尼亚和黑塞哥维那，科索沃和北马其顿加入欧盟的下一步行动。2020年3月，欧盟为与北马其顿和阿尔巴尼亚的加入谈判开启了绿灯，并引入了新的改革后的“加入谈判”框架。加强法治，打击腐败和有组织犯罪是2018年欧盟-西巴尔干战略和2020年新加入加入谈判框架的基石。本文通过概念化分析了2018-2020年扩大政策的最新发展，探讨了该政策的最新发展。欧盟通过其新的扩大政策一揽子计划在西巴尔干地区促进法治。此外，本文提供了对阿尔巴尼亚案的深入分析，欧盟在该案中试验了其有关法治的最新扩大政策构想。本文还就如何改善2018年欧盟法治倡议提出了一些建议和见解，以期在加强西巴尔干国家的法治方面更具变革性。