The future alignment of the Albania’s agriculture and rural development policy with the CAP requires a new vision for policymaking as well as a new approach to the design of policy measures, similar to the transformation carried by the new Member States before accession.

In this context, understanding the diversity and complex structure of the national agricultural policies and comparing them with the actual complexity of agricultural policies in the EU is a necessary prerequisite for rational decision‐making in agriculture. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a profile of Albanian agriculture and agricultural policy based on an analysis of key statistical indicators and other data in the light of the European integration process. The main objective is to evaluate the general strengths and weaknesses of Albanian agriculture as well as main differences in policy design and implementation in comparison with the EU.