EU police coordination meeting in Tirana

TIRANA, Sep. 7 – Contact police officers of the European Union member countries in the Western Balkans countries convened in the Albanian capital Tirana to discuss on further cooperation with the regional countries.
All the western Balkan countries are either candidates or have applied for the candidate status with the bloc.
Interior Minister Lulzim Basha used the meeting to hail the decision of the European Parliament on passing the report referring to the visa liberalization procedure for Albania and Bosnia Herzegovina.
The minister also hailed the excellent cooperation that his country has with the European Union in the fight against organized crime and trans-border crime.
Basha said that the contact police officers have increasingly raised the level of efficiency of the fight against crime since their establishment in the region, adding that further cooperation would bring about good results in crime prevention.
On Monday afternoon the European Parliament Foreign Committee passed a report presented on how the two countries have worked on the benchmarks set from Brussels before they get the visa-free regime.
Following that report the parliament is expected to vote on a draft law in mid-September.
Then the interior ministers of the EU member countries will decide in November if the two countries will get the visa-free regime.
If positive, it will come in power when it is published in the Official Gazette a few weeks later.