Albania made a new start in its accession perspective with the second intergovernmental conference after the “unfreezing” of the procedures that had been put on hold during the imprisonment of MEP Fredis Beleris.
With clear references to the protection of minorities and property that satisfy Athens, Tirana will have the obligation to follow the agreed otherwise the process could be delayed again.
The position of Greece
As the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Giorgos Gerapetritis pointed out, coming to the intergovernmental conference in Luxembourg, “our position is that the first set of chapters which opens today and concerns fundamental rights and the rule of law, should include both the rights of minorities, including of the Greek ethnic minority, especially their property rights. And in fact this position now constitutes a common position recorded common position of the 27 member states of the European Union”.
The EU common position underlines that “in accordance with the chapters of the Roadmap for the Rule of Law, an efficient and transparent property registration and integrated management system, which will provide clear and secure property titles in Albania, will be implemented in property with a fully digitized service in practice by 2030”.
With regard to the rights of minorities, reference is made to the adoption of the statutes on the free self-determination and use of languages of persons belonging to minorities, as provided for in the Road Map for the Rule of Law and in accordance with European standards as well as the strengthening of the implementation capacity, including the committee on national minorities and its resources.
Rama: “Historical day for Albania”
For his part, the Albanian prime minister, after speaking of a historic day for Albania, “attributed” the acceleration of the process to Vladimir Putin.
“Unfortunately, I cannot avoid saying that it was with the help of Vladimir Putin that this process picked up a new gear after the aggression in Ukraine which served as a wake-up call reminding Europe that the illusion of self-sufficiency is just that, an illusion ».
Regarding North Macedonia, today was the official release of its common European perspective with Albania. As long as there is no reference to the Bulgarian minority in the country’s Constitution, Skopje cannot proceed with the accession part.
“Show” Rama about Alexander the Great and North Macedonia
In fact, Edi Rama in the press conference in Luxembourg referred both to the Greek friends and to Alexander the Great, but also to the steps the EU is following for the states to join:
“Preventing ‘Macedonia’ and then North Macedonia, and hopefully there will be no South Macedonia to do this, does a great harm to a nation. It does a lot of harm to the people, it does a lot of harm to the region.”
“I love Alexander the Great, we all love him but I don’t care where he was born and I don’t pretend that as an Albanian I inherited his genes. We already have many Albanians pretending that Napoleon was Albanian. Do you want us to open a bilateral issue with France over this? Because then there will be a bilateral conflict over Corsica. And then it will never end. You know, Einstein was Albanian. What should we do? And there is always the moment, at the end to block” he added, saying to the EU: “let the countries grow, let the countries do their work, let the countries how to build institutions”.
“But not when the countries need the know-how, when they need the help, when they need the support because then you have a country where 28 years ago it was an undisputed Euro-Atlantic community and look today who is the most liked politician in Macedonia, in North Macedonia or whatever… Because now I don’t want to receive a phone call from my Greek friends saying, you said Macedonia. No. It’s North” he concluded.
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