TIRANA – Minister of Foreign Affairs Ditmir Bushati attended Wednesday the European summer school held at the parliament presidency. Bushati spoke about the path Albania is walking down with regard to integration process.
He stressed that EU has set restrictive criteria for the Balkans adding that none of these countries had met them all.
“During our first term of office, there was no EU enlargement which brought no change at all. In addition, the candidate countries were not ready to become members. EU set restrictive criteria as the case of our countries. This kind of rhetoric has calmed in the Balkans. These are all clear evidence that the EU is not maintaining the momentum we would like to see. Yet, if there is a will to reform and move, it is difficult to say that the EU has not responded. There was a bipartisan will that took its time, regarding the reform of justice. It is now clear that the ball is in our court and we need to strengthen national consensus, dialogue rather than get caught up in rhetoric.”
Bushati added that in the last years the regional cooperation has increased at high rates.
Furthermore, he said that the Berlin Process was never seen as an alternative to EU accession. The recent years have seen abuses with data, however today the debates on issues concerning our countries are more substantial.