Hungary will provide Albania with all the support it needs to successfully complete its integration into the European Union, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Tuesday, adding that the government would focus on enlarging the EU during its next EU presidency.
Hungary’s presidency of the EU Council in the second half of the year will come at a time when the continent faces serious challenges, as the world finds itself in “an era of dangers”, Szijjártó told a joint press conference with his country. His Albanian counterpart, Igli Hasani, according to a ministry press release.
“There is a war on the continent, the competitiveness of the EU continues to deteriorate and the mood within the European Union is not the best either,” Szijjártó said. “That’s why a little freshness, momentum and new energy would be necessary.”
“It is also clear that we can only get this freshness, this new momentum and this energy outside the bloc. and this is clearly the Western Balkans, whose countries have long been preparing to become members of the EU,” he added.
Szijjártó said that advancing EU enlargement would therefore be a priority of the Hungarian EU presidency.
“We do not want to harbor naive illusions. but this fight will be difficult, because contrary to their public positions, many member states are actually opposed to enlargement,” said Szijjártó. According to him, this is demonstrated by the fact that Albania applied for membership in 2009 and was granted candidate country status in 2014, but accession negotiations have not even started yet.
Tirana has done a lot
He said Tirana had done “a lot” to prepare for EU membership and that all conditions to open meaningful negotiations were in place.
“We consider any further delay to be dangerous from a European point of view, because the longer we delay, the more the EU loses credibility in the Western Balkans,” warned the minister.
He said more and more actors were seeking to increase its influence in the region and therefore it would be crucial for the EU to use its competitive advantage in whichever community Western Balkan countries would prefer to integrate into. .
Szijjártó added that Hungary was providing Albania with all the help it needed, emphasizing that the government had sent two integration experts of ambassadorial rank to Tirana. In addition, an agreement was reached on training Albanian experts at the Hungarian Academy of Diplomacy and providing scholarships to 20 Albanian university students every year, he said.
Wizz Air and OTP Bank managers in Albania
Szijjártó welcomed the fact that “bilateral economic cooperation has entered a new dimension”, with Albania having become one of the main destinations for Hungarian capital in the Western Balkans. Bilateral trade turnover reached a record 130 million euros last year, and Hungarian companies also became market leaders in the country’s strategic sectors, he said.
He highlighted that a Hungarian company has become the leader in the mobile communications market in Albania, that OTP Bank is the third largest entity in the banking sector and that the Hungarian low-cost company Wizz Air is the first airline in the country with a market share of 51 percent.
At the same time, preparations are underway to build a photovoltaic plant with the support of the Hungarian government, Szijjártó said.
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