EU To Discuss Tirana’s Request In Autumn

TIRANA, July 28 – German Ambassador to Tirana Berndt Bochart said Tuesday that Brussels would discuss the request for the candidate status fro Albania in autumn, but after the country concludes the election process.
The June 28 parliamentary elections seem they will have their impact, unfortunately not a good one, on the country’s EU prospects.
Albania applied for the candidate status at the end of April but it is taking more than one month to formally declare the winner of its parliamentary elections.
Earlier this month the EU decided not to include Albania with three other Balkan countries to enjoy the visa-free regime starting next year. It said Albania and Bosnia would be re-considered again next year. Albania should issue more biometric passports and also take better care of its border management.
On Monday the European Union’s foreign ministers endorsed Iceland’s application for EU membership saying the nation’s negotiations toward that end will probably take less time that those of other candidates such as Albania and Montenegro.
Foreign Minister Carl Bildt of Sweden, whose country holds the European Union presidency, said Iceland will undergo a quicker entry process in its bid to join because it already is a member of the EU’s single consumer market and its passport-free travel zone.
The small north Atlantic country of 320,000 already meets most EU membership criteria, but tough negotiations are expected over fishing rights and its ability to repay Dutch and British depositors who put money in the offshore division of a failed Icelandic bank.
Iceland is hoping EU membership will ease its recovery from its economic collapse last year. The country’s currency, the krona, has plummeted, while unemployment and inflation have spiraled.
A fast-tracking of Iceland’s membership bid is likely to anger Croatia and other Balkan countries, and could cause a rift within the EU as well if Iceland is allowed to jump to the front of the membership line.Negotiations with Croatia are currently stalled due to a bilateral border dispute with neighboring Slovenia, but are nearly complete and talks regarding other countries, such as Albania and Macedonia, have yet to get a go-ahead from the EU on opening entry talks, even though their entry bids were submitted before Iceland’s.
Croatia applied for membership in 2003, while Albania submitted its bid in April.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Vygaudas Usackas said the EU should use Iceland’s bid as “the icebreaker” to breathe new life into the bloc’s faltering expansion plans as many Balkan countries do not meet minimum democratic and economic standards to start negotiations.
In Tirana Prime Minister Sali Berisha hailed the EU decision “reiterating its stand to take under examination Albania application for EU membership following the end of the electoral process.”
“This statement is a great encouragement for our aspiration towards the status of the EU candidate country and I take the opportunity of assuring the foreign ministers and the governments of the EU member countries as well as the European Commission that my government considers the integration process, meeting of the criteria, norms, and community standards as a top priority,” he said Monday at a news conference.
Berisha assured the Albanian citizens for all the reforms that pave the way to the acceleration of Albania EU integration process. “We follow all the obligations stemming from the electoral processes according to which on the first year of the second term in office the visas for the Albanian citizens will be liberalized.”