Kukan: Albania has not progressed

The failure to fulfill the 12 key priorities and the lack of a sincere political dialogue in the country have obliged the head of the Balkan Delegation for the European Parliament, Eduard Kukan, to think that the idea of having progressed towards EU is not real.

“My concerns are related with the 12 criteria that have been clearly assigned in last year’s progress report. Now we will see how this year’s progress report will evaluate them, but I objectively think that most of the time has been spent in vain, and this is bad for the country.  Since there is no true political dialogue, and since the conditions of the 12 priorities are not materialized, I think that it would not be realistic to think that there has been progress towards EU”, Kukan declared.

“I know that Albania can do much better. The Albanian citizens deserve a better situation for their future. I know that there have been positive signals from Tirana, but we would like to see a confirmation. So that they will nor remain just signals, but that there exists a tendency for progress. Without this, it would be very difficult to receive any kind of positive and concrete encouragement from us”, Kukan underlines.

The process for creating the action plan for the implementation of the 12 key priorities took eight months. Last February, the Albanian government submitted an action plan, but the Commission returned it for not including the opposition’s opinion, with a personal intervention of the Commissioner for Enlargement in Tirana, Stefan Fule.

After five months, in July, the government representatives showed in Brussels that the new action plan had included the opposition’s opinion, specifically, that of the head of the Parliamentary Commission for Integration, Socialist MP Ermelinda Meksi, who immediately denied it.

While there is less than one month remaining before the Commission publishes the progress-report, the Albanian government and opposition are accusing each other for the integration process stalemate.

“This way, we cannot go anywhere. This is exactly what we want to underline in the discussions that we have with the ruling party and the opposition. What we have not been able to see yet, is the political dialogue that must be addressed to the needs of the country. Without a sincere and true dialogue, nothing can be achieved”, Kukan declared.

“Albania has a lot of things to do, such as the electoral reform. I know that the central elections are two years from now, but time flies away and the last elections ended without fulfilling the 32 OSCE-ODIHR recommendations. We must see the opposition and the government to share together the common political responsibility, for the future of the country. Without this, I don’t think that things could positively progress”, Kukan added.

After Albania applied for EU membership, the member countries asked the opinion of the EU Commission, which analyzed and decided that Albania did not deserve the candidate status and the start of the membership dialogues.

 For this, Albania should fulfill 12 key priorities for a normal Parliament functionality; guarantee a regular voting process for the election of Constitutional Court members; guarantee election standards; electoral reform; guarantee judicial system independence; depoliticize the public administration; guarantee property rights; present facts for war against corruption and organized crime; undertake policies against women discrimination and Roma minority; and improve living conditions for the detainees.

Prepared by: Arta Tozaj

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