European Commission’s head Jean Claude Juncker will visit Tirana Sunday afternoon, in his second stop of his tour in Western Balkans, aiming to boost the region’s integration processes towards the EU.
Junker is accompanied by Commissioner for Enlargement Johannes Hahn and High Representative for Foreign Policy, Federica Mogherini. The agenda starts at 17.30 with a military honor in front of the Prime Ministry office. Juncker will first meet Prime Minister Rama, with whom he will hold a press conference.
The visit aims the progress of Albania’s integration reforms in the EU, within the framework of the new enlargement strategy, presented earlier in February by the EC defining 2025 as the year for the membership of the region. A few days ago, Commissioner Hahn said in an interview wfor the
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that membership negotiations for Albania and Macedonia will start during the summer, as countries have made progress with the Euro-integration reforms. The senior European official said that Albania in particular had made progress in the fight against organized crime.
Balkan tour starts with a visit to Skopje. While after Albania, European officials will visit Serbia on Monday, then Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on Wednesday Kosovo, to close the visit with Bulgaria, which has the European Union’s next presidency./tvklan.al
