The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, called for the year 2030 to be set as the deadline when the European Union and the candidate countries are ready for enlargement.

During the speech at the Strategic Forum of Bled, in Slovenia, he repeated several times that from now on candidate countries should be referred to as “future EU member countries”.

In his speech at the panel of the leaders of the Strategic Forum of Bled, the Prime Minister of Albania Edi Rama appreciated the call of the President of the EC, although as he said he does not believe that Albania will be in the EU in 2030.

“There should not be only reforms and criticism that are necessary, but also the most consistent support, and I’m not talking only from the financial point of view, but also the market access of our enterprises. What is happening all these years in these countries is that on the one hand, through the Berlin Process, we talked about infrastructure and how to finance the projects, on the other hand, the infrastructure is being built by the Americans, the Chinese and the Arabs. I have always known that working 50 years for free against the West, Enver Hoxha made us more pro-European and more pro-American than anyone else. It will take us another 50 years after the fall of communism until we are not pro-European and pro-Western. We have another 20 years of Euro-optimism and I hope that by then you have fulfilled your promise”, said Rama.