“Albania’s obligations now reflect our constant demands, our struggles and the injustices that we have suffered for so many years as members of the Greek national minority“, stresses in a statement the MEP of the New Democracy and the EPP, Fredi Beleris, on the occasion of the opening of accession negotiations with Albania.

After noting that the accession negotiations are starting today, after a decade, and that “Albania’s place must be in Europe”, Beleris stressed that “it is now up to Albania to show speed, determination and courage in moving in this direction” and that “it must know that it has many more steps to take, with respect for the European acquis, the rule of law and democracy as its landmark”.

“I firmly believe that it will be a demanding but highly therapeutic process for the country. In this process, of course, there are no discounts and national egos”, he added in his statement, who is also a member of the EP Delegation to the EU-Albania Parliamentary Stabilisation and Association Committee.

For this reason, he says, he expects Europe “to act as an institutional guarantor and vigilant monitor of the critical changes that Albania must make to its institutional backbone”, as “our Union has the necessary mechanisms to monitor effectively, to intervene corrective and to demand decisively the implementation of Albania’s accession obligations”.

“These obligations now reflect our constant demands, our struggles and the injustices that we have suffered for so many years as members of the Greek national minority,” he underlines and adds: “Now, in the first set of chapters co-signed by 27 member states, the rights of the Greek national minority and especially our property rights are included, while at the same time the obligation of Albania to adopt immediately the implementing laws concerning the right to self-identification and the use of the Greek language in contacts with public services is explicitly recorded.”

“This is what Albania must do in order not to miss a historic opportunity that is opening up before it. I hope that it will fulfill the accession conditions to the letter and not deviate from the European path it has chosen”, he concluded.