From Strasbourg, where the European Union Parliament Members met with
the Albanian delegation, the Chairman of the European Parliament
Delegation for Balkan, Eduard Kukan, declared that this failure might
damage Albania, since the Commission will report to the Council in June
that the parties did not sign the mutual agreement.
“In the last meeting between the European Parliament and Albania for the Stabilization-Association Agreement, the Albanian parties did not agree on a joint declaration. I stayed for four hours with the delegation even after, buit then I had to leave. But they agreed, and I appreciate the fact that they didn’t want to close the meeting without an agreement. They said they would continue the political dialogue, and this is what should have happened. They tried some times in Albania and while our mandate in Parliament is coming to an end, they must know that this is the right time to consolidate this agreement. The dialogue started very intesively this week but no agreement was reached, and I feel very sorry for this. Each party will now try to blame the other. I don’t want to say which side is to blame, but the European way is that of negotiations and compromises. This is what we are trying to explain to our Albanian partners. Please talk with each other, make it as dramatic as you want, but you must come together in an agreement, because that is the European way. This agreement will damage Albania, because the status will be discussed in June. We valued the positive tendencies that we noted in the past Council, all coming from dialogue and the political culture, but the Council wanted to insinuate that these should have been long-termed, if we wanted to reach some results. This was a golden opportunity to show that short-termed tendencies would not continue. Unfortunately, the Commission will write that there was no agreement, no political compromise was reached, and they don’t know what results will this bring in the Council. I think that you have lost a very good political chance to show that the situation in Albania has improved”, declared Eduard Kukan, head of the delegation for Balkan.
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