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By virtue of the stabilization and association process, aspiring Southeast European nations will begin the alignment of their legislation to EU standards much before they are granted the status of an official candidate and commence accession negotiations. Therefore, in the first part of this article, the authors assess the impact of the Stabilization and Association Agreements (and the Interim Trade Agreements as their prelude) on direct taxation, regardless of accession negotiations, as well as the scope of the changes carried out in direct tax legislation and their potential as the starting points once the accession process commences. In other words, the first part of this article is dedicated to answering the question which parts of the acquis would have to be implemented by a Southeast European nation which is a candidate or a potential candidate for EU membership regardless of the success of the accession process. The conclusion which is drawn is that the pre-accession negotiations phase of the EU integration processes of Southeast European countries has a limited effect on their direct tax legislation, while the vast majority of the acquis will have to be subject to adoption within the accession negotiations phase of EU integration to which the second part of this article is dedicated to. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]