Minister of Internal Affairs Fatmir Xhafaj during a two-day visit to Brussels held a meeting with the Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship of the European Union, Dimitris Avramopoulos.

At the beginning of the meeting Avramopoulos highly appreciated the impressive results achieved this year by the Ministry of Interior and Albanian Police in the fight against organized crime, border management and issues related to asylum seek and irregular migration. He stressed that these are results that have strong support from EU member states.

The Commissioner reaffirmed the support for Albania’s accession to the European Union, stressing that through his position as Commissioner, he will continue supporting Albania’s aspirations towards the European family.

Minister Xhafaj appreciated the work done so far by the Commissioner in addressing the challenges of the Western Balkans, but especially for the unsparing support he has provided for the country.

On the other hand, Xhafaj stressed the need for the establishment of the Joint Regional Police Co-operation Center as an instrument to face common challenges.

Albania has been successful with the measures to reduce asylum seekers and their common denominator, is reducing the number of asylum seekers by 30%, a fact that was also appreciated by the Commissioner.

“Regarding illegal migration, Albanian authorities have a very cooperative relationship with Greek counterparts, as the country with the largest flows of migratory fluxes over the last few months, but in this area more attention needs to be paid to Brussels for capacity building of our border structures”,

Minister Xhafaj said./tvklan.al