TIRANA, April 5 – Sweden continues to support Albania’s EU integration process and the bloc’s enlargement in the region, the country’s ambassador to Albania said this week.
“We strongly support EU enlargement,” said Johan Ndisi, Swedish ambassador to Tirana, during a presentation of the priorities of Sweden’s UN Security Council Presidency in January this year.
Ndisi said Sweden has politically and financially invested in Albania’s EU integration process. Every year Sweden gives 9 million euros in areas like environment protection, climate change, rule of law and economic development.
Asked about the current political crisis in Albania and the coming parliamentary elections, he said the most important thing for Albania is to have free and fair elections.
The event was organized in cooperation with the Albanian Institute for International Studies, and the institute’s executive director, Albert Rakipi, said Sweden brings soft power as it takes on the UN Security Council Presidency.
Ndisi said that UN membership is a key feature of Sweden’s foreign policy, according to the ambassador.
“The UN is core to our foreign policy,” he said, “we believe that we bring something’’.
Sweden became member of UN in 1946.
“As a small country’’ he said, “we defend the international order which has at its heart the United Nations.’’
Sweden is the second largest per capita contributor to UN funds. He expressed his belief that is important for small countries to seat in the UN Security Council.
“As a small country this is an important arena for us,’’ Ambassador Ndisi said. Three main priorities of Sweden’s January presidency of the UN Security Council were to ensure a good start of the new Secretary General, Antonio Guterres; secondly, to raise the UN effort for conflict prevention and the link between women, peace and security.
“When half of the population is missing on the table,’’ he said referring to women, “how sustainable a process can be?’’
The third priority was improving the working methods of the UN Security Council. The Swedish ambassador said that for the first time civil society groups were invited to the discussions of the Security Council. The idea, according to the ambassador, was to make UN more popular, to make foreign policy more open and transparent.
Ambassador Ndisi added that Sweden was very satisfied with its work in the UN Security Council in January. There were a lot of results, statements, a large number of meetings. During Sweden’s Presidency there was a transition of power in Gambia and there mediation efforts in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Concerning the civil war in Syria, the Swedish ambassador said that Sweden was as frustrated with the situation as the others. “Syria is something we are heavily engaged’’ he said. Swedish troops are training Kurdish fighters and Sweden received thousands of Syrian refuges last year.
Ndisi is the first Swedish resident ambassador in Albania, after Stockholm recently increased its diplomatic representation to Albania.
