Speaking about the beginning of talks for EU accession, Balla said that, “perhaps we in this hall have not yet understood the importance of this historic achievement for Albania, which should have happened 4 years ago, but I believe that this part of the hall is clear now that the whole delay had nothing to do with Albania’s ability to do its homework, but was a technicality related to the veto that the Bulgarian Republic had imposed on North Macedonia in this process. Given the fact that all this between Bulgaria and North Macedonia was resolved, it was held in record time. Never before the College of Commissioners completed all the work for holding the First Intergovernmental Conference in a three-day period. I believe that everyone should be happy about this, all Albanians should be happy, because in the end it is an achievement of all Albanians.”

“We have come to that point of the process when every Albanian should feel European. The accession treaty may take 34 months, as in the case of Latvia, Slovakia, it may take even more, 54 months in the case of Bulgaria and Romania. It may take more than 100 months as in other cases, but from this moment there is no doubt that Albania will be a member of the EU. This time the colleagues from the opposition were laughing at without going into specific names, depends on us. Naturally, the parliament has a very specific task here,” said Balla.

“I propose to the opposition that for the issues related to the process of Albania’s EU accession, for the issues related to the transposition of laws, to the alignment of the Albanian legislation with the acqui communitaire, we should come to agreement and not have a complex about the political debate of the day or the narrow political interests. At this stage of the process, it is very important to be united,” said Balla.
” I mentioned Latvia and Slovakia, which are the cases with the shortest time for negotiating the treaty, because they managed to close the chapters in less than three years,” stressed Balla.

“The bottom line is that in these countries, if you go and ask during this time, there has been constructive political dialogue and agreement in the best interest of the country. Many laws that will be aligned require 84 votes and the SP does not have them. I think it is the right moment that, on behalf of European Albania, the DP parliamentary group, which is the largest opposition group, should be willing to cooperate. It is not heresy to cooperate with the majority”, said Balla.

Balla underlined that, “President Macron proposes a new political community, which is not a shift from the accession process, but a rapid rapprochement of the WB countries to be in the same line on foreign policy issues, and then Chancellor Scholz is much more optimistic, he speaks about a membership of the Western Balkan countries within a period of 4 or 5 years. Whether both are true and both are possible, we must do what is up to us.”
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