TIRANA, April 15 /ATA/ – Prime Minister Edi Rama stated Tuesday that the European Union sees Albania as potential member of the bloc, saying that the country should seize this moment when Albania’s domestic circumstances match with the current EU’s state of affairs.
Responding to comments and questions on his “Sy m’Sy” social media segment, the government head focused on the important meetings and talks in Brussels and Luxembourg, where the fourth EU-Albania intergovernmental conference was launched and the Cluster 2 of accession negotiations was opened a day ago.
Rama said that he and the President of the European Council Antonio Costa discussed the encouraging progress of Albania’s EU accession negotiations and the fact that the timeline for completion of the accession negotiations in 2027 coincided with the current circumstances.
“Albania’s star of European destiny and the EU stars have met. EU is more interested than ever before for its enlargement and sees Albania as a trustworthy and respected partner, as well as a protagonist of the reforms process in the Western Balkans. So, Albania and Montenegro are seen as new potential members of the EU,” Rama said.
The government head acknowledged that geopolitical factor was one of the elements influencing Albania’s EU integration process. However, he noted that EU membership is merit-based process that requires every candidate country to meet standards.
“Anyone saying the opposite either has no idea how the EU works or is pretending to. Regardless of geopolitics, the need that the EU has today to expand its ranks, for geopolitical reasons of course, the EU forgives absolutely nothing, under any circumstances, for any reason,” Rama stated.
“The EU can be unfair when you deserve to take the next step, and because of internal dynamics it tells you ‘No’, as it has already done in our case,” Rama said.
The government head emphasized that everything achieved so far in Albania is under constant oversight by a staff of one thousand people in Brussels and others engaged in Albania, who oversee the entire state-building process in all areas.
/r.e/a.f/u.sh/
