Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama appears to be promoting Turkey as the country's main ally and benefactor and has been criticized for that.
ALBANIA
Greece and Albania on Monday signed an agreement establishing a new “communications center” on the land border between the two countries, aimed at strengthening cooperation between their police forces and customs offices.
Immediately after Greece announced the expansion of its territorial waters in the Ionian Sea from 6 to 12 miles, some in Albania started playing the same old, tired tune: “Greece is making a grab at our seas.”
The titanic efforts of the past 30 years to bring the Orthodox Church of Albania back from the abyss in challenging conditions made even harder by the (continued) fluctuations in the Greek-Albanian relationship have made him a wiser man than he was when he first set foot in the Balkan country.
The process of inducting the countries of the Western Balkans into the European Union may be fraught with difficulties, but it is also the only way forwards, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama told a conference in Athens on Wednesday.
The European Union could open accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia within weeks as both countries have made good progress in their preparations, the European Commission’s enlargement chief, Oliver Varhelyi, said on Thursday.
“The Western Balkans are an intrinsic part of Europe and the European Union’s enlargement policy is its most powerful tool for ensuring stability and security in the region,” Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias told a high-level conference in the northern port city of Thessaloniki on Monday.
Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias on Monday attended the international donors’ conference “Together for Albania,” which was hosted by the European Union in Brussels.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday she would push for a start to European Union accession talks for Albania and North Macedonia at an EU summit in March.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis expressed hope in an interview with the Financial Times on Tuesday that French President Emmanuel Macron would remove any obstacles to European Union accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania, after blocking the process in October.
The search and rescue operation for earthquake survivors in Albania has ended, the prime minister said Saturday, with the death toll at 51 and no more bodies believed to be in the ruins.
Rescue workers sifted through the rubble of a hotel by the Adriatic Sea for possible survivors on Friday, three days after a 6.4-magnitude destroyed the six-story building and many others in the Albanian port of Durres and surrounding areas.
Hopes were fading Thursday of finding anyone else alive beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings in Albania, two days after a deadly quake struck the country’s Adriatic coast killing at least 46 people and injuring more than 2,000.
Rescue crews used excavators to search for survivors trapped in toppled apartment buildings on Tuesday after a powerful pre-dawn earthquake in Albania killed at least 14 people and injured more than 600.
Greek seismologists sought to play down fears of a knock-on effect from the destructive earthquake on neighboring Albania that claimed at least seven lives and injured dozens of people in the early hours of Tuesday.
Albania’s defense minister says the death toll from a strong earthquake that struck before dawn has risen to seven. Olta Xhacka said Tuesday that the latest victim died in an accident on a road cut off by debris in northwestern Lezha.
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