EU urges Albania to fight drug cultivation

TIRANA, Sep 22 – Albania claims it is no more a significant transit country of drug traffic and that it has harshly cut amounts of cannabis sativa planted in its homeland.
That seems not to be fully supported by the European Union.
One of the conditions Albania must fulfill to get a visa liberalization agreement with the EU is to stop all illegal drug cultivation, European Commission Vice President Jacques Barrot said last week when meeting with Albanian Foreign Minister Lulzim Basha.
Barrot made the statement at a press conference in Brussels, where he presented the EU’s ongoing plan to combat drug trafficking throughout the Balkans, including in Albania. Barrot said he told Basha “this is one of the issues on which we are very demanding.
We want Albania to be very efficient in its fight against the production and fabrication of narcotics”.
He suggested that just a helicopter flight gives a show of the “extensive plantations of cannabis cultivated for a quick and easy export to Europe.”
“With up to 2 million problem drug users in the EU, it’s high time to raise awareness of vulnerable groups, especially youth, on the risks of drug taking,” Barrot said. “We must do much better.”
Barrot’s proposal, which will need the backing of EU countries, seeks to spend more money on prevention and treatment, and to curb new drug shipping routes into Europe, like western Africa.
Barrot said he is already pushing Balkan nations like Albania to do more to curb the power of crime gangs there, which he said were responsible for growing and moving drugs into the rest of Europe.