Von der Leyen in Tirana, Muçi: Albania risks being a second-tier EU member

On the “3D” show on RTSH, moderated by Alban Dudushi, a debate was held on the political messages and the significance of the visit of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to Tirana during her Balkan tour.

Invited to the studio, Lëvizja Bashkë MP Redi Muçi was critical of Brussels’ statements on the progress of reforms in Albania, describing them as geopolitical positions outside the country’s real context.

“The aim of the European Union is clearly to expand for its own needs, to say that ‘there are many things wrong with the European Union, but at least we are expanding.’ And in this context Albania and Montenegro will also benefit, with the new conditions being set for second-tier members. Because there are these 27 of the first tier, and there are we who have no veto right, who have brakes if the funds coming from the EU are abused. So, a kind of justification that Edi Rama will of course use to say ‘there, I got you into the EU,’ but on the other hand we will be, as I said, second-tier members. And I do not believe this serves Albanians. Especially the process up to the moment when Edi Rama will be forced to repeal the 2021-2024 law for the sake of the negotiations and the law on strategic investments and possibly the mountain package — until that moment, which I believe will extend until 2029 — Albania in the meantime will be massacred, will be divided into pieces to realise what Edi Rama’s vision is, which is ‘The Albanian Files’: 500 projects across Albania with no urban-planning criteria, simply theft of property, destruction of nature and towers and resorts!” he said.

Muçi further stated that the EU’s new enlargement model will treat the Western Balkan countries as “second-tier members” — without veto rights and with restrictions — which, according to him, will be used by the majority for propaganda, while by 2029 the country’s territory and property risk being completely alienated by the concretisation project.