TIRANA, Oct. 7 – EU’s enlargement policies can be unfair and unpredictable to Albania and others in the region, Prime Minister Rama has said in a wide-ranging interview with Austria’s Der Standard.
Rama said he did not know when Albania would open accession talks with the EU.
“You never know that with the EU, because the positions and conditions constantly change. We were told negotiations would begin when the Constitutional Reform was applied to the justice sector. So, we changed the Constitution, but the accession talks have not begun,” Rama said. “Then we were told that the law was important to the review commissions. Then we were told that the elections were important for us to start. Now we’ve done everything, and we’ll see. It can happen next year if the European Council gives a positive opinion, but it might also not happen next year. The enlargement process has become increasingly unfair and less predictable for the states. This has nothing to do with Albania, it’s about Europe itself.”
Albania’s long-term aim to join the European Union is a priority for both for representatives of the majority and the opposition, and the perception that the bid has stalled is causing major concerns among relevant actors and the public at large.
As part of the reforms needed to join the EU, the country has gone through or initiated constitutional, judiciary, elective and police reforms, declared war on cannabis production and trafficking and fired officials who were believed to have abused their institutional posts.
However, Rama defended Jean-Claude Juncker not mentioning Albania along with Serbia and Montenegro in a letter directed to the President of the European Council concerning enlargement perspectives because the other two Balkan countries have already started negotiating, he made sure to convey he found the lack of negotiations unfair.
“The problem is not what Europe says, but what it does. In our case it is totally unfair, because we are a NATO state; Montenegro has joined NATO much later. Moreover, we are far ahead of Montenegro in the decisive judicial chapters. Serbia must also continue to make these reforms. We have already done this. It’s fantastic that they negotiate. It’s just unfair that we do not negotiate. I do not understand this incredible fear of European leaders when they continually link the beginning of accession negotiations with their own elections or the rebellion of public opinion,” Rama said.
Bringing folklore into the mix, Rama compared the lack of negotiations in the broader context of EU seeking enlargement with saying: “We want to get married, but we do not talk about the wedding.”
Another point of focus for Der Standard’s questions was Rama’s role in Albania’s foreign relations with its neighbouring countries, and particularly those with Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia.
Rama mentioned Kosovo’s visa regime as ‘non-sense’ because “the EU has said that you (Kosovo) must first establish a border agreement with Montenegro, but at the same time the EU is already negotiating with Serbia, a state that has not even recognized Kosovo, let alone the borders of Kosovo.”
When asked whether he saw himself as a protector of Albanians in the region and whether his interference could be deemed troublesome for the sovereignty of other states, Rama said that: “Our Constitution clearly states that the Albanian state is concerned about all Albanians abroad. I do not tell them what to do, and I have not intervened in the Macedonian election campaign. But if they ask for help, I will not say no. And I will always do it, whatever others say. This is natural and not interfering. For us Macedonia is central. Any threat to the integrity of Macedonia is dangerous to the entire region.”
Rama did not answer a question on Macedonia’s claims that his actions have created political instability, but rather talked of the importance of border management and the necessity for a lighter border management especially with Kosovo, but also with all other bordering countries. More than just light passenger traffic, Rama said that light border control is “about the trade in goods throughout the region, which is part of the action plan we have adopted with Commissioner Johannes Hahn.”
Lastly, Der Standard focused on the appointment of Gramoz Ruà§i as head of Parliament, even though Ruà§i was Minister of Interior in 1991, when four people were shot dead during demonstrations in the city of Shkodra at the very end of the communist regime.
Rama said Ruà§i has already been released by those accusations – which made him not a symbol of that time, but rather “the goal of a barbaric kind of opposition” – as everything was investigated in a court case.
Rama said that Ruà§i was Minister of Interior at a transitory time and “acted magnificently because he has organized the first free and fair elections as Minister of Interior. And during these elections the communist president has lost. The rest is just nonsense, and I do not understand how this can be discussed in 2017, when we have passed a law that allows all files from the communist era to be published.”
Rama used this question as a chance to express his belief the Parliament now functions properly, unlike in the past.
