European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso urged visiting Albanian President Bamir Topi on Thursday to conduct further reforms in his country for European Union membership.
Barroso told a joint press conference after their meeting that he conveyed a clear message "to go on with reforms, because there are indeed some problems regarding the perception of Albania in Europe," especially concerning corruption and organized crime.
"Those issues are serious and they have to be tackled with decisiveness," Barroso said.
On his part, Topi said that his government did everything it could to "deepen the reforms, particularly within the political and judicial systems" and made remarkable progress in combating organized crimes and corruption.
Albania signed last year with the EU a Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA), fulfilling the first formal step toward EU membership.
The EU usually signs SAA agreement with European countries hoping to join the bloc to formally put the hopefuls on track to join the union.
Under the agreement, which has to be individually ratified by the 27 EU member states, Albanian products can get free access to the EU market, while the country will gradually open its market over five years to European products.
Only proper implementation of the SAA can lead a hopeful to EU candidate status one day.
Source: Xinhua
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