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Greece "conditions" Albania's membership in the European Union

2024-12-18 16:55:18Politikë SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Greece "conditions" Albania's membership in the European Union
Albania / Greece

Greece will support Albania in its decade-long bid to join the European Union, but on condition that it respects the rights of the country's Greek minority, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

Relations between Athens and Tirana deteriorated after Albania arrested Greek minority politician Alfred Beleri during a local election campaign in his home town of Himara last year and imprisoned him for vote buying.

Beleri was released this year after winning a seat in the European Parliament as a candidate for Mitsotakis' conservative New Democracy party.

Speaking at the signing of a contract for a new road connecting the northwestern Greek city of Ioannina with the Albanian village of Kakavija, Mitsotakis said Greece has always maintained good relations with its Adriatic neighbor.

But its support for Albania's EU membership bid depends on the speed of fulfilling long-standing obligations related to property and other rights of Albania's Greek minority, which is the largest in the country.

"There is a continuous path of conditions towards the European Union, where we are essentially the regulators of the speed at which Albania will move towards Europe," Mitsotakis said before traveling to Brussels for the EU-Western Balkans summit.

Albania, along with Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, were promised EU membership years ago and are in talks with the EU on how to accelerate necessary reforms, which will eventually help them become part of the 27-nation bloc.

But the process has stalled, mainly due to slow progress in reforms and also due to a lack of desire by EU member states for further enlargement.

Albania opened the first chapter of accession negotiations with the European Union in October, 15 years after applying for membership.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, after a meeting with his Serbian counterpart, Marko Djuric, in Athens, Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis said that Greece also supports Serbia's efforts to join the EU.

"Serbia's membership in the European Union is a geopolitical necessity," Gerapetritis said.


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