Hoffman: Judiciary, Albania’s challenge

Germany was one of the countries that influenced the postponement of
the status in December. In an interview for Deutsche Welle, the German
Ambassador in Tirana, Helmut Hoffman, explained what changed in these
six months that pushed skeptic countries to vote in favor.

“There
have been speculations for the candidate status of December. The fact
is that the governments of the five EU members, including Germany,
simply thought that they needed more time to see what was happening in
Albania with a new government in power, since it looked good and the
power rotation was not a problem. The current stance of Germany is due
to the continuity of reforms”, he declared.

Same as the Vice
Director of the Southeastern Europe Organization one day ago, Joana
Demiel, Hoffman also mentioned the Lazarat operation as an example that
Albania has made progress, and this has influenced the status.

The
Ambassador says that Albania has still much work to do. “When you read
the conclusions of the Council, you understand what challenges await
Albania”, he says.

“Albania need to keep working hard with the
organized crime and corruption for opening the negotiations with the EU,
and certainly, more efforts are needed”.

Hoffman, who is also a
historian, underlined that our country has a problem with the image.
After receiving the status, the first challenge is opening the
negotiations.

Top Channel