“Albania deserved the status”

“Croatia is a success story for the entire region, and certainly that also for us. We believe that Croatia’s European Union membership, and the agreement signed between Kosovo and Serbia, are two huge events that bring a new ear for our region”, Rama declared.

“Certainly, and I want to be sincere about this, Albania is being experienced as a state that still has obstacles in the path towards Europe, and some of them are subjective and Albania needs to change them, but some are not correct about Albania. When you speak about our support to Albania’s European Union candidate status, our support is sincere, as sincere as our support to Serbia. I don’t consider right the fact that Serbia started the membership negotiations, something that we supported, while Albania has not started the negotiations yet. Our position is that Albania and all the other countries of the region need to take the candidate status as soon as possible and start the negotiations with the European Union”, Milanovic declared.

Both Prime Ministers were asked by Top Channel if June is a realist date for the candidate status. Milanovic declared that Albania deserved the candidate status, but there were some European issues that affected the postponement.

“I think that June is possible, but unfortunately, there are not only rational criteria in politics. Albania is a NATO state, and that means that at least the army, part of the system, is harmonized with the highest international standards. According to the analogy, Albania deserves at least the chance to negotiate about the European Union membership. We will oppose the prejudice in Europe, because the European policy in some very democratic states is often under pressure of prejudice that comes from some ethnicity and regional factors. We will bring our voice in a civil way against this phenomenon, because we also experienced that prejudice, and this is not good”, Milanovic declared.

Prime Minister Rama declared that the news for closing the Albanian embassy in Zagreb was completely untrue.

“Croatia is a referring point, an inspiration and main partner in the region, with whom we want to reinforce the connections even more, because we are convinced that we have a lot to learn from you. We are in a reforming process for the diplomatic service, a process for the rationalization of our sources. There will be cuts, but only for reinforcing our presence and our connections with most of the countries. Croatia is one of these places, where we want to reinforce our presence”, Rama declared.

The Interior Minister, Saimir Tahiri, and his Croatian Counterpart, Ranko Ostojic, signed a cooperation agreement. The Croatian Prime Minister also met with the Albanian President, Bujar Nishani.

Top Channel