EU membership for Serbia and Albania 'strategic', says FMRome, 24 January 2015 (MIA) - EU membership for Serbia and Albania is of strategic importance for the stabilization and security of the entire Western Balkans, Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said on Friday in a meeting with his Serbian and Albanian counterparts.
To this end, he said, Italy has always fought and will continue to play a major role.
The first three-way meeting between Rome, Belgrade and Tirana was held on Friday in the Italian Senate and sent a clear message to Brussels that the accession process for the two countries needs to be accelerated, Italian media reported.
In a meeting with Serbian foreign minister Ivica Dacic and his Albanian counterpart, Ditmit Bushati, Gentiloni underscored that the two countries' membership in the EU was a ''strategic commitment'' for the government - one reiterated by PM Matteo Renzi at the end of the Italian six-month EU presidency.
It is also, however, he said, a commitment that ''should be shared with EU partners'' since now ''we are waiting for further results''.
Belgrade and Tirana voiced appreciation for the role Rome has played as a 'bridge' to Europe, as well as for the Italian mediation in the detente in relations between Serbia and Albania. ''Italy can give us the stimulus to normalize relations, which are indispensable for the security of the entire region,'' the Serbian foreign minister said. The Western Balkans, he noted, can now more than ever set a good example of how conflicts and civil wars can be overcome.
''We have not been transformed from devils into angels,'' the Albanian minister said. ''The fact that there is no longer conflict in the Western Balkans is in part owed to prospect of becoming EU member states.''
The trilateral meeting also focused on regional cooperation in the field of energy and infrastructure as well as on EU's strategy for the Adriatic-Ionian Macroregion.
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