European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas speaks during a G5+ Foreign Ministers meeting in Madrid, Spain, Monday March 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Paul White)

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — The European Union ’s foreign policy chief on Tuesday hailed Albania's “ambitious” agenda to close full membership negotiations in two years and also urged the country's political parties to support difficult reforms ahead.

Kaja Kallas, who is on a regional tour, was in the Albanian capital, Tirana, to meet with the country’s leaders and assure them that the country's future is in the bloc.

“Albania has an ambitious agenda to close EU negotiations in the next two years,” Kallas said at a joint news conference with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama. “It’s vital to sustain the high pace of reforms. And I also understand that the reforms are always quite difficult.”

Still, “Albania’s future is in the European Union,” she said.

Later Tuesday in Bosnia, Kallas warned of a “fragile” security situation following a series of separatist moves by the Bosnian Serb leadership that have led to a constitutional crisis.

“These actions contradict the commitments that Bosnia and Herzegovina has undertaken on its EU path,” Kallas said. “We will not tolerate any threats to the territorial integrity, sovereignty and constitutional order of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Any attempts to break up the country are unacceptable.”

The Western Balkans countries — Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia — are at different stages in their applications for EU membership. They have been frustrated by the slow pace of progress, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 encouraged Europe’s leaders to push for the six to join the bloc.

While the EU decided in 2020 that it would start full membership negotiations with Albania, Bosnia is lagging behind because of persistent ethnic and political divisions stemming from the 1992-95 war.

Russia has backed the separatist president of a Serb-run entity in Bosnia, Milorad Dodik, who has faced U.S. and British sanctions for his policies disrupting Bosnia's postwar unity achieved in a 1995 U.S.-brokered peace agreement.

In Albania, Kallas praised Tirana's alignment with the EU's policies on Russia.

“Your decision to fully implement EU sanctions against Russia alongside your political, military and humanitarian support to Ukraine demonstrates your commitment to our shared values,” said Kallas.

Rama has said he hopes to complete the negotiating process with the EU by 2027 and for Albania to become a bloc member by 2030.

“We will not rest until we step into the door of the European Union, and sit around the same table that the European Union does,” Rama said.

Albania is part of the EU’s growth plan and it is expected to receive more than 920 million euros ($1 billion) over the next decade.

Also Tuesday, Albania signed a 90 million-euro ($98 million) agreement with the European Investment Bank to reconstruct the railway between the port of Durres and Rrogozhine, which Kallas said would serve as a "critical route between Member States and NATO for military mobility in South East Europe, which is extremely important in the current security environments.”

The EU funds consist of a 60.5 million-euro ($66 million) grant under the Western Balkans Investment Framework and a 30 million-euro ($33 million) loan from EIB Global that will help to modernize the 34-kilometer (21-mile) railway line.

The project costs 121 million euros ($132 million), and 30 million euros ($33 million) in co-financing will be provided by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

“The project will facilitate safer and more efficient and sustainable passenger and freight transportation, contributing to socioeconomic growth and regional integration,” a statement said.

Albania holds parliamentary elections May 11 in which Rama's governing leftist Socialist Party has put EU membership as its goal. The conservative opposition accuses the Socialists of corruption and being unable to take the country ahead.

News from © The Associated Press, 2025