European Parliament approves draft resolution supporting granting Albania candidate status later this year.
TIRANA, Oct. 29 – Albania came under the focus of the European Parliament last week, as the southeast European country is being evaluated to become an official candidate for membership in the European Union.
The parliament passed a draft resolution in support of an earlier recommendation by the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, that Albania be granted EU candidate country status in December.
The resolution is a standard procedure ahead of the final decision to be made by the 28 member states at the European Council at the end of the year.
The draft resolution, proposed by Nikola Vuljanic, the MEP in charge of reporting for Albania at the European Parliament, recognizes Albania’s progress in its efforts to meet the European integration reforms and urges that member states grant the country EU candidate status in 2013.
The resolution also notes that a lot remains to be done by the Albanian government, particularly concerning the public administration reform, the fight against organized crime and corruption, judicial independence and media pluralism.
European parliamentarians also urged Albanian counterparts to have dialogue and cross-party consensus.
Meeting in Tirana with Albanian members of parliament a delegation for the European Parliament headed by Eduard Kukan called on Albania to do more to fight corruption and organized crime as well as respect human rights if to wants to join the 28-member bloc.
“I believe in the EU enlargement process, and Albania’s EU accession is also significant to the EU itself,” said Kukan, adding that the EU “expects from Albania to fight corruption, organized crime and respect human rights.”
He also urged Albania to do its job and further deepen the reforms until December so that no one would be able to deny it the candidate status.
Kukan acknowledged there are countries that havedoubts about Albania’s readiness to get to the next EU integration step, but he said that with the proper work “the European Parliament will surely support Albania’s ambition to win the EU candidate country status.”
The joint meeting with Albanian lawmakers issued a statement that was signed by both main political groupings in Tirana, a show of consensus that had been missing for two years. Last year’s scheduled meeting was postponed due to lack of consensus.
Issues debated at the meeting included ties between Tirana and Brussels, the fight against corruption and organized crime, justice reform, environment protection, economy and energy as well as regional cooperation.
European lawmakers urged both political sides in Albania to support the inter-party cooperation and contribution in the successful adoption and rigorous implementation ofkey reforms.
They also hailed the already-approved TAP gas pipeline deal that connects Albania to Greece and Italy as well as Europe to Azerbaijan.
Macro-economic and social stability remain other top priorities for Albania. And EU officials said local authorities should work in property ownership issues and other key topics set in the progress report charted by the European Commission.
EU officials also praised a greater participation of women in the new administration. Albania currently has the highest number of female cabinet ministers in its history, six, as well as has seen young female officials promoted to oversee key areas of the administration such as customs and taxes.
