Greece to support Albania’s EU integration process

TIRANA, Jan. 8 – Greece, the country now holding EU’s rotating presidency, says it fully supports Albania’s bid to gain candidate status for membership as soon as possible.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos said in an interview with a Greek media outlet that “Albania should get the candidate status in June.”
Last December, the EU Council denied the status to Albania for the third time since 2009, with four member states saying Tirana should show tangible results in the fight against corruption and organized crime. However, no new priorities were set for Albania and the denial came after the refusal to grant the status by Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.
Venizelos said that Albania has made good progress in the integration process and that Athens would promote granting the status to its neighbor during their presidency.
“There are countries that could be promoted faster like Montenegro. Albania’s performance is also pleasing, and we expressed ourselves in favor of giving the status, immediately now, and we shall consider that again in June during the Greek presidency,” he said.
Venizelos said he will contact all the Balkan governments to see how to facilitate their process of integration.