Albania’s prime minister has urged the start of talks for his country to join the EU as part of a western Balkans enlargement to bolster European security.

Edi Rama said it would be “crazy” for the EU to fail to embrace a region central to migration routes and eyed by Russia as a strategic prize.

The premier argued Tirana had fought back strongly against drug problems and judicial corruption, making it a serious candidate to meet Brussels’ ambitions for western Balkans states to accede as early as 2025.

“We would find it very strange if Albania will not start negotiations right away, after having done exactly everything it was asked to do,” the artist turned head of government said in an interview, pointing out that Serbia and Montenegro have already started EU accession talks. “Now what we want is simply to be rewarded for what we did — and for the process to be fair and to be predictable.”

Mr Rama spoke to the Financial Times during a visit to Brussels ahead of this week’s EU summit. His comments reflect private frustration in Tirana that Albania has not yet been allowed to launch talks despite the progress it has made in economic and political reforms.

Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia’s strongman president has been embraced by the EU after he declared joining the 28-nation bloc his key political goal, even though he has faced criticism at home and from some foreign observers for allegedly clamping down on media freedoms.

Mr Rama called on the European Commission to recommend the opening of accession talks in time for EU leaders to approve it at their June summit. He pointed to the importance of Albania and neighbouring countries in curbing flows of migrants to the bloc, adding that Russia’s interest and influence in western Balkans — while sometimes exaggerated — was real.

“They [Moscow] never gave up in seeing the geopolitical importance of the region — which is not seen by many in the EU, with the exception of [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel,” said the towering Mr Rama, who used to a member of Albania’s national basketball team. “It’s crazy to think the western Balkans can be left aside, let alone out of Europe.”

Tirana is anxious to take advantage of signs of renewed momentum behind EU enlargement after the commission last month published a western Balkans enlargement strategy. The document suggested Albania and the five states of former Yugoslavia could join the EU within eight years, but only if they met tough conditions such as resolving outstanding bilateral disputes and tackling corruption.

Some EU member states remain sceptical about the sextet’s membership prospects amid wider “enlargement fatigue” after the 2008 financial crisis, eurozone debt problems and the UK’s Brexit vote. The bloc’s leaders are due to meet their western Balkan counterparts at a special summit in Sofia in May.

Mr Rama argued his country had made “stunning progress” on cutting cannabis cultivation and the murder rate. He added that its problems with heroin and cocaine were not “special” compared with other European countries.

He acknowledged that fighting corruption was a “permanent struggle”, but said a crackdown on graft in the legal system had already delivered results. He said 17 judges and prosecutors had quit rather than submit to a review of their past performance and sources of wealth.

The premier said he was hopeful of agreement soon with Greece to solve disputes over territorial waters in the Ionian Sea and compensation for the property of the Chams, an Albanian Muslim minority driven out of northwestern Greece during the second world war.

“By summer I hope we will sort out everything,” he said, adding that his country and Greece were still technically at war thanks to another second world war legacy. “So 70 years of history will not any more be an obstacle to the path towards the future.”/Financial Times