Albania must continue with the reforms in order to advance with the
European integration process, according to the German Chancellor, Angela
Merkel, during a joint press conference with PM Edi Rama in Berlin.
“Albania has had radical changes in the last years and has taken important steps with THE REFORMS. The European Commission is following the developments in Albania and has valued them positively in the latest report. It is important for this path to continue”, Merkel said.
The Chancellor underlined the Justice Reform, saying it should be followed by a stable implementation, and the other priorities appointed by the European Council, which are fight against corruption, organized crime and future parliamentary elections, which should be based on the OSCE and ODIHR recommendations.
“I believe that we have achieved important things and we will speak on how Germany could help even more”, Merkel said.
The Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama, valued the support of Germany for creating te right conditions to give peace in Balkan a new quality of regional cooperation, but he also had an appeal for the EU.
“The Berlin process has turned into a new communication space in ou region. This promising situation is related to the big attractive power that Europe has for us. But I this positive situation, neither we or our European partners should ever take for granted what we have achieved, because there are also third actors in our region who tend to exploit every fluctuation or vacuum that can be created in our relations with the EU”, Rama said.
The Albanian PM underlined that the EU integration for Albania should be a honest and predictable process.
“Albania and Albanians want nothing undeserved in this process. We have not started this path because it was imposed to us by Brussels, Paris or Berlin, but because it was dictated by the founding fathers of Albania 104 years ago, as an expression of an early free will to be detached from the East and join the West”, Rama said.
He said he is aware of the significance the Justice Reform has, and that it is now time to start implementing it.
However, Rama says that Albania deserves the same loyalty from the EU, with “our foreign policy 100% in favor of EU decisions, with our regional policy completely oriented towards the EU values, and with the internal policy led by the European Spirit”, he said.
“Our region needs the EU as much as the EU needs us”, Rama said.
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