Europe closely watching Albania’s development

TIRANA, Nov 25 – Pierre Mirel, Director of the Directorate for Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo issues in the European Commission’s Directorate General for Enlargement, hailed Albania for its integration efforts but also noted that the tiny Balkan country has just started the road towards the European Union membership.
Mirel visited Albania this week to meet with all top Albanian officials.
Mirel also made it very clear that the country should resolve its political crisis and that was closely followed by Brussels. Mirel said that further continuation of such a crisis would negatively affect the country’s integration steps into the bloc.
Albania is also expecting to get the visa-free regime from the Schengen countries.
Prime Minister Sali Berisha, on his side, assured Mirel that his cabinet had said European integration as its top priority
Albania has requested to get the candidate status, the next step into integration following the Stabilization and Association Agreement. EC has said that it is preparing the questionnaire for such a step, something expected to be received form the country in the next month likely.
Following that Tirana should make an extensive work to answer the thousands of questions and, if EC is pleased with them, pass on to the next step of preparing for the membership. Such a process may normally get up to 18 months.
“This is the first step of Albania’s integration process. Certainly, Albania will have to meet major challenges at this process. The first challenge would be to the replies for the Questionnaire. To this end, it will be extremely important to make ready all forces in Albania to prepare this Questionnaire,” said Mirel.
The fight against corruption and organized crime, economic reforms, property ones, strengthening administrative capacities and also the political criteria remain areas in which Albania should focus upon in the future.
“What is most important for this opinion is how to comply with the political criteria, the functioning of democracy, the rule of law, which means the judiciary, fighting corruption and organized crime and media freedom. Hence, it will be these conditions that will be taken into consideration in the largest extent possible for the preparation of the Opinion by the EU Commission, just as we have done in the past. It is a major challenge indeed, but at the same time a major chance for the country to move ahead.”
Mirel said that all forces in Albania should be helpful. “It is necessary for the opposition to be in the Parliament. In a democracy, political debate and political discussions may take place only in the Parliament and not in the streets. Otherwise it will have an impact in the Opinion we are going to prepare; therefore, we shall see the functioning of democracy and the Parliament whether it functions. Therefore, ways should be found very soon that opposition return to the Parliament. Hence, I am encouraging the dialogue between the Government and the opposition in finding a solution so that the opposition returns in the Parliament and contribute to this debate.”
The European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee was to discuss on a parliamentary resolution on the European Commission’s 2009 enlargement strategy for the Western Balkans, Iceland and Turkey, drafted by a member of parliament Gabriele Albertini.
The resolution calls current and potential EU candidate countries to continue reforming in order to stay on track for eventual EU membership.
Lars Schmidt, who is head of the Enlargement Group at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs EU Department, said that, “We can see positive developments in almost every individual case, which is also confirmed by the Commission’s report. … How far we can go will be decided by the Council in December when it decides how the reform efforts in the countries concerned are to be ‘rewarded’.”
On Tuesday Slovenian and Italian foreign ministers Samuel Zbogar and Franco Frattini have written to their EU counterparts a letter calling for stepping up the process of visa liberalization for Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania.