Slovenian MEP urges Albania speed up road map reforms

TIRANA, Nov 17 – Tanja Fajon, Member of European Parliament, who drafted the Resolution adopted by the European Parliament last week on the inclusion of Western Balkan countries in the visa free travel regime to their Schengen space, made a visit to Albania to meet with top officials and also take part at a meeting discussing that issue.
Fajon met with Prime Minister Sali Berisha and also his deputy and Foreign Minister Ilir Meta.
Meta thanked Fajon for her successful initiative and gave an updated overview on Albania’s compliance with the roadmap benchmarks for visa liberalization.
Fajon expressed her continuous commitment and confirmed the will of European Parliament and other community institutions to proceed, as soon as possible, with reaching the decision for lifting visas for our citizens.
She urged Tirana to rush in completing the required steps as the European Union delegation would visit the country by the end of the year.
She was confident that Albania would get the visa free regime by July next year.
Fajon also attended the Conference “Visa Free Regime for Albania – the Final Steps”, an event held in cooperation between the Foreign Ministry, European Stability Initiative ( ESI) with its seat in Brussels and the European Movement of Albania( EMA).
Fajon expressed the unreserved support of the European Parliament in the process of visa liberalization for Albania, underling that this process should be a shared goal of the Government, civil society and opposition.
While stressing the significance of the compliance with the requirements on the part of Albania, Fajon expressed the commitment by the European Parliament to work for the acceleration of the visa liberalization process, underlining her confidence that, “Ʃt is realistic to expect that visas will be lifted as soon as possible within the year 2010.” Meta emphasized his wish that the Conference would mark a new, more cooperative, committed and fruitful starting point in the relationships of the Foreign Ministry with independent institutions, representatives of the civil society, media, business groups, students and others, placing all factors under the common denominator of speeding up the country’s integration process to the EU.
Meta underlined the maximum commitment of the Albanian Government to comply with all Roadmap benchmarks, touching on the concrete performance in its four blocks, which have been also reflected in the Final Report handed over today to the EU Commission.
EC Ambassador Helmuth Lohan commended the considerable progress made lately by the Albanian Government in meeting the Roadmap criteria on visa liberalization and stressed the significance of the continued reform implementation, especially in strengthening cooperation among law enforcement agencies, in combating organized crime and corruption, using up -to -date technology in the border crossing points and in the implementation of the adopted legislation.
Lohan believed that, “Albania has got a realistic chance for the visa abolishment soon.”