Albania Leads in the EU Integration Agenda, Says Commissioner Marta Kos at “EU Meets the Balkans” Forum
Albania is leading the EU integration agenda, stated European Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos, during the “EU Meets the Balkans” forum currently being held in Sofia.
“We are working to accelerate the negotiation process as much as possible, and we are seeing progress that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago,” declared Kos.
“A few days ago, we opened another cluster with Albania — the second since I took office five months ago — and very likely not the last,” she added.
“In such a short time, we have opened as many clusters as were opened in the past five years. We will also be closing open clusters quickly, because that’s how this process will move forward. Success requires strong leadership to implement the transformative reforms of integration,” emphasized Kos.
“This also means making difficult political compromises, leaving behind past conflicts, and moving forward toward the future. Through the payments system, we have made it possible for an entrepreneur in Tirana to send and receive money just as easily as someone in Vienna or Dublin. With regional integration, we will go even further,” the EU Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos, stated during the “EU Meets the Balkans” forum in Sofia.
Kos also noted that “our world has changed fundamentally over the last two months,” and for the first time in its history, the EU is holding accession talks with a country at war — referring to Ukraine, according to BTA.
“For the first time, EU enlargement is not just about fulfilling the criteria for membership or about the EU’s readiness to accept new members. We are facing disruptive external forces that want to see us fail,” she said.
Commissioner Kos emphasized that “Europe has effectively entered a phase in which geopolitical competition and direct aggression in our immediate neighborhood are undermining our efforts to consolidate democracy and threaten to turn Europe into a battleground of competing interests.”
/Argumentum.al
