Host Albania has high hopes for EU-Western Balkans summit

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Get our free View from Westminster email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Albania's prime minister said Monday that a European Union summit in his country's capital this week demonstrates the EU's heightened geostrategic interests in the Western Balkans region during Russia's war in Ukraine. has helped to push more EU leaders” into moving the countries along the membership path because “you need the Balkans, Western Balkans as much as the Western Balkans needs the EU,” Rama said. The prime minister called Tuesday's meeting “the most important event in the history of international relations,” noting that the former communist country was until 1990 “cut completely out from the world and from Europe.” The summit will bring “a lot to the Western Balkans, to our country, a lot of positive energy, a lot of hope, a lot of new ways, new paths, that will define themselves in the next steps,” Rama said, calling the EU's decision to hold the summit outside of its territory a “good omen for the future.” With the exception of Kosovo, which didn't declare its independence from Serbia until 2008, the Western Balkans nations first were identified as potential EU candidates in 2003. Rama maintained that relations among the Western Balkans countries, mostly those that made up the former Yugoslavia, have never been better, though he acknowledged that Serbia's refusal to recognize Kosovo's independence “is still the elephant in the room.” "But we are on this path, and we will continue to push for reconciliation, normalization, and we’ll continue to work closely also with Serbia,” he said.