In a televised interview, Mesi said, “Albania continues to implement the reforms. For the first time in years, Brussels on its part made a detailed statement specifying the priorities, which seemed to me as an additional clause to drag the process out. “This year it seems that the problem is North Macedonia.”

According to her, “it is the first time that 27 EU countries agree that Albania has achieved all the objectives, there are no de jure and technical impediments, yet the decisionmaking by the Union is political.”

“Do not forget that during the last 2 or 3 years they also held their elections, Europe is becoming more and more populist, their internal national agenda is much more nationalistic, the part of the EU enlargement and integration of the Western Balkans would not be a winning agenda for those political parties running in elections of EU countries.”

She stressed that “the dispute between North Macedonia and Bulgaria, which was used as an argument for not setting a date for the First Intergovernmental Conference was an excuse.”