Basha intensifies diplomacy for visa-free regime

TIRANA, July 25 – Foreign Minister Lulzim Basha has intensified his diplomatic efforts along the country’s hope of reaching the visa-free regime and integration into the European Union.
The Foreign Ministry said in a statement last weekend that diplomatic efforts have been intensified in Europe.
Basha has made telephone calls to many of his coutnerparts in europe.
Albania applied for candidate status with the European Union at the end of April but it seems that has been forgotten somewhere in a Brussels’ drawer waiting for the final results of the June 28 parliamentary election.
Albania has started the application for the Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU after all its member countries ratified the deal.
Tirana is trying to speed up and push Brussels to consider its request but there are no good signs.
EU’s foreign commissioner Javier Solana, who is to leave the post this autumn, visited all the regional countries but Albania.
All the nations of the Western Balkans – Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Montenegro, and Serbia – say they want to achieve full EU membership in the coming decade.
But Albania seems nowhere in the eyes of Brussels. Europe seems to be waiting for the final results of the parliamentary election, considered as an important test of Albania’s democracy.
Albania seems to be sidelined from Europe’s interest at the moment.
Solana did not visit, no other European diplomat mentions anything about Albania. It is only the ambassadors in the country who become public in the eyes of Albanians.
What does that mean? Are we that far from democratic standards, or in an obvious gap even with, say, Serbia?
Or that Albania, a tiny country, finds it hard to secure support, or create allies in Europe?
At present, Albania is mentioned nowhere.
The European Commission said citizens of FYROM, Montenegro and Serbia should be allowed visa-free travel to EU nations starting Jan. 1. But the commission stopped short of recommending that citizens of two other Balkan nations, Albania and Bosnia, also be allowed visa-free travel because they still lack enhanced passports containing microchips with biometrics data.
Prime Minister Sali Berisha also said it clearly that anything to do with Europe means opening a door with 27 keys, that is, member countries.
Europe has not set any date to check Albania’s application for candidate status submitted at the end of April.
Sweden, which holds the EU rotating presidency, has made it clear the request will be considered only at the end of the electoral process in the country.
Speeding up the consideration of Albania’s request for candidate status with the EU and lifting visa requirements for the Albanian citizens top the agenda of the Albanian diplomacy, said a ministry statement.