Director General for European Affairs Snežana Radović participated at the international conference in Tirana entitled “A new chapter for European Integration of Albania in a developing Europe: Challenges after and the enlargement policy.”
The conference was hosted by the Albanian Institute of International Studies in cooperation with the EU Delegation to Albania, embassies of Germany and Italy in Tirana, and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. Participants were representatives of the European Commission and institutions in charge of coordinating the EU integration processes of Albania, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Slovenia, and Serbia.
The meeting was launched by Albania’s European integration minister Klajda Gjosha, and other speakers were Albania’s Deputy Prime Minister Niko Peleshi, chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on EU Integration Majlinda Bregu, Head of EU Delegation to Albania Clive Rumboldt, Director of the Institute for International Studies Albert Rakipi, director of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation office in Albania Frank Hantke, and ambassadors of Germany and Italy to Albania, Helmut Hoffman and Massimo Giani.
Director General Radović spoke in her remarks about the key phases and activities in Montenegro’s EU accession: establishment of the negotiation structure, analytical overview of the acquis, and adoption of key documents such as the Programme of Accession of Montenegro to the EU. She particularly noted the importance of the new accession to negotiations which puts in focus the chapters related to the rule of law, and in this regard she conveyed Montenegro’s experience in organising the negotiations in Chapters 23 and 24.
Ms Radović underlined the importance of regional cooperation and emphasised the need to intensify communication and knowledge exchange with the view to reaching European goals.
In that context, she voiced Montenegro’s readiness to use dialogue and fruitful neighbourhood policy in all strategic areas, as well as to participate in regional initiatives with the view to keeping the enlargement process alive and to contribute to long-term stability and prosperity of the region.
Montenegro wants to offer its own example as encouragement to other countries in the Western Balkans to intensify their reform activities towards reaching European goals. Croatia’s EU accession, EU Council of Ministers’ decision to launch negotiations with Serbia and grant candidate status to Albania all signify a favourable moment for the region’s integration and a signal that the Union’s door remains open even at the time when it is facing many challenges, Ms Radović has said.
Secretary of the Negotiating Group Miodrag Radović took part in the second panel devoted to the region’s EU perspective. He presented Montenegro’s negotiation structure and noted that a third of the negotiation structure members are representatives of the civil society, which is a novelty in the process of accession negotiation which lends importance to the Montenegrin approach.
