This work is conceived inside an economic and political framework. In particular this study examines the impact of interventions promoted by some international organizations, representatives of the European Union, like the EIB - the main international financial institution in the Western Balkans regarding the volume of activity, that today is of about 6 billion Euros - in a country, as Albania, that have all the required characteristics to be recognized - thanks to the many social and political transformations that lasted for about two decades - as a civilized and democratic country. The starting point of this analysis is quite different if not opposite to the most common ideas concerning the non-admission of Albania in the European Union. In fact we will face the determinants that hamper the entry in the EU. Our question is: Why the "Land of the Eagles" is not yet a member of the EU 27 despite the existence of a number of programs and proposed funding already allocated and in favor of it? The answer could lies in the lack of development of a civil society: although these issues concerning the Western Balkans could be date back to the '90s now, these have assumed a new dimension. Inside the Enlargement Strategy of the 2007, the European Commission has in fact identified the development of a civil society as one of the key reform priorities for the future access of these countries. From this background the objective of this work is to show, following an assessment of the trends of poverty proposed by the Living Standards Measurement Living (LSML) in Albania for the period 2002- 2008, the absence of a link between exclusion from the EU and the economic situation of a country that, among others, has made in recent years significant progress towards certain requirements crucial to proceed in the path of European integration.