TIRANA, July 19 /ATA/ The rapporteur for Albania in the European Parliament, Isabel Santos, participated on Wednesday in the 16th meeting of the Albania-EU Association Stabilization Parliamentary Committee.
In her remarks, Santo said that, “many reforms have been implemented amid difficult times, in the aftermath of the earthquake, during COVID, during this period of war, but we have been together and despite all these setbacks the reforms have been carried out.”
“It is time to speed up these reforms somehow. Of course, the reform of the judicial system was important, but now we have to deal with the backlog and move ahead,” she said.
Of course, Santos added, “there are some reforms related to the economic sectors, which have been important, but we need to do more. The register of properties and assets must be finished.”
“We have to go through some things that we have inherited from history and overcome the unpleasant ones. We must be more competitive, looking around in the region and looking at the group of countries we want to join, we must create conditions to become competitive,” Santos emphasized.
“We also have to do something that for me is the most concerning thing when I look at the membership process. Having a strategic view of the country for decades to come. I understand the reality of this country, because it is not very different from the reality of my country. Sometimes we lose track of strategic perspective, sometimes we are complacent about what we have achieved. But we have to aim for more, we have to project the future, we have to get ahead of the future, because if we don’t do that, we risk not doing something that is very important in politics, because at the end of the day in politics it’s all about dreams, as the ambassador said, and it’s all about hope,” said Santos.
“In this process of joining the EU, it is very important to get ahead, foresee the opportunities this gives us and be prepared because when the EU says you can enter this program or that program it is good that we have in hands what we want to do with that program, with everything in order to really take advantage of these opportunities. This has been a great challenge for my country and I believe it will be for you as well,” said Santos.
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