E. VENIZELOS: Thank you very much for your introduction and for your hospitality and for this excellent welcome. I am here in Tirana at the end of a very long trip in our historical common area and region of the Western Balkans. I visited six capitals in four days, in my double capacity as the current President of the Council of the European Union, during this semester, and of course in my national capacity as Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister of the Hellenic Republic.
My visit today to Tirana is a very friendly and successful end to this long itinerary, and it is a great pleasure for me to repeat my official statement about a very critical point of the Albanian European perspective: the granting of the status of the candidate state for Albania is always a top priority for the Hellenic Presidency of the Council, and our willingness and our target is to organize the repetition of the relevant discussion within the Council by June in order to achieve this very fair and legitimate target, the granting of this status to Albania.
As you know, the Greek national position was positive for the granting of candidate status for Albania last December. The wording of the Conclusions of the European Council is now an open invitation for the continuation of the Albanian effort to achieve this status as an entry point for the opening of the negotiations for the accession of Albania in the European family.
For us, this is something very important and very attractive, not only within the framework of our excellent and strategic bilateral partnership, but also for obvious regional reasons, because for us the main target is always regional stability and also the endorsement and the strengthening of the regional ambition for the European integration of all the countries of our peninsula.
As you know, I am sure, the current Presidency, the current Hellenic Presidency of the Council, is the fifth one, historically speaking, after the accession of Greece to the European Communities in 1981, and the previous Presidency of 2003, the previous Presidency with the historically famous Summit of Thessaloniki and Chalkidiki, was linked with the so-called “Thessaloniki Agenda 2003”. This Agenda, the Agenda for the European and the Euroatlantic Integration of the Western Balkan is now the current, the existing European policy for this region.
In order to refresh this “Thessaloniki Agenda 2003”, we now have the intention and the project to organize a Ministerial Meeting in Thessaloniki, in the last week of April, in cooperation with the High Representative and the European Commission; a Ministerial Meeting with the participation of the 28 European Ministers, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs from the six countries of our region and also with the participation of other Prime Ministers in order to discuss not only on a political level, but also in order to elaborate some diplomatic projects for the preparation of the European integration of our peninsula.
During my trip this week, I had the opportunity to talk directly with all the governments, the political personnel and the official representatives in six countries. The common denominator of my trip is the regional willingness for European integration and the regional conception of the European perspective as a factor of stability, not only for economic and social reasons, but also for political ones.
From this point of view, the situation in the different countries of the region – this is my own assessment – is in a very critical situation, just before the last step for the European integration.
Let me make a more specific reference to my visit to Serbia during a pre-electoral period. My impression is that even during this electoral period the Serbian political personnel and the Serbian leadership are always ready to enhance and to endorse the critical political dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina. Some weeks ago, in Brussels, I chaired the First Intergovernmental Conference for the opening of the negotiation procedure between the EU and Serbia, and I repeat now in Tirana my statement that this procedure, this Intergovernmental Conference, is a great opportunity, not only for the European integration of Serbia, but also for the European and Euroatlantic integration and destiny of Kosovo.
In Pristina, I had the opportunity to talk with the Prime Minister, with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, not only in my European capacity, but also on a bilateral level, and now we have a very stable, very concrete and very practical and very ambitious bilateral framework between Greece and Kosovo. And we declare once again our readiness to offer our expertise and transfer our very strong and very rich institutional memory from our previous Presidencies, not only to Serbia for the negotiation procedure, not only to Albania for the preparation of the next step, for the preparation of the candidate states, but also to Kosovo for the preparation of the local administration and for the endorsement of the European aspirations.
The situation in Montenegro is very clear, very calm and also very ambitious, because we have before us five newly opened chapters of negotiations.
And the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina is always very fragile and very critical. It is a common European historical and institutional duty to protect the integrity, the unity and the European destiny of this country through a very difficult constitutional engineering and always through difficult and fragile inter-communal and inter-ethnic relationships.
On the bilateral basis, my visit, my meeting yesterday with the Prime Minister, Mr. Edi Rama, my meeting this morning with my counterpart, Mr. Bushati, was an excellent opportunity to elaborate more on our bilateral relationship in order to discuss all the existing pending issues with good will and always through a very clear frame of reference imposed by the European acquis and the full respect of the International Law, including the International Law of the Sea. Our common willingness is to go ahead, through the fast track, because our common willingness and our common political decision is to present and enhance and to strengthen the strategic character of our bilateral relations, of our bilateral partnership.
Thank you very much.
JOURNALIST: Can you tell us about the agenda for the meeting in Thessaloniki? Did you talk to the Albanian Foreign Minister about the issue of maritime borders and the matter of the military cemeteries?
E. VENIZELOS: On the second question let me make a reference to our common statement made together with Minister Bushati. It is not fair to repeat my answer. But my previous statement at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was very concrete and very practical. It was a great opportunity for me to present in detail and with some technicalities our common position on some pending issues. I repeat, our commonly accepted principles: the European acquis and international law.
On your first question, our mission is to organize the celebration of the Thessaloniki Agenda not as the priority of a rotating Presidency but as the common European position and strategy. This is a great opportunity, especially for the Albanian authorities, to discuss with the member states of the E.U. some days before the next debate, within the Council, on the current status of the candidate countries, in Luxembourg.
It is a great opportunity for the Albanian government and for my Albanian counterpart to present the level of preparation of the Albanian administration, of the Albanian legal order, of the Albanian political personnel for the granting of the status of candidate state. This preparation is very useful, not only for the status of candidate state, but also for the negotiation itself. The main target is not just the status of candidate state, but accession, integration.
Albania has a great privilege. It is a full member state of NATO, a full member of the Euroatlantic family, and now European integration is the second phase. But the starting point is very strong and very solid.
JOURNALIST: [Question from News 24 journalist asking for clarification of what Mr. Venizelos meant by the phrase “critical situation,” with regard to the region.]
VENIZELOS: Thank you very much for the question. It’s an opportunity for me to clarify my expression. The critical situation is in Bosnia and Herzegovina, because the situation is very fragile and we must overcome, we must surpass the existing tension between the different political and social forces. It is our European duty to preserve the existing constitutional entities and also to facilitate cooperation between the constitutional components of this neighboring state.
February 21, 2014