Thursday, May 08, 2014

The third national course of ASPS on “Albania and the trends of European integration” was held in Durres from 2– 4 May 2014. The course objective was to provide the participants with substantial knowledge on the EU and the European integration process, in order to help them better understand Albania’s challenges in its path towards the EU. The key speakers were lecturers and experts as the Deputy Minister of Integration Mr. Gentian Elezi ; Mr . Adrian Civici , president of the EUT  and  Mr . Gledis Gjipali , executive director of the EMA. The internal organization of the European Union and its diplomatic service was presented by the French diplomat and an ex-member of EU delegation mission staff in Tirana, Mr. Hubert Petit. In the first session, “EU enlargement policy” the deputy minister provided an overview of Albania’s path towards the EU and explained the pre-accession mechanism together with the requirements for the EU candidate status. Participants discussed about the June’s decision of the EU on the candidate status for Albania.
Meanwhile, Mr. Gjipali in his presentation addressed a comparative view between the progress of Albania and other Balkan countries on the road to integration and what's next for them beyond the candidate status. The next topic was focused on the role of civil society and media on visa liberalization process and the problems observed recently in the increased number of requests for asylum status.
Mr. Civici in the last session addressed the need for a new model of economic development that our country should follows in order to have a competitive economy with the economies of other countries in the union.
The French diplomat Mr.Hubert Petit explained for the participants the organization and the EU's internal decision-making. Beyond the classic model of lecture, professor Petit discussed his memories titled "Kafe - Dialog". The author, as one of the negotiators of the Albanian political agreements of 2007-2008, revealed for the first time some of hidden scenes of negotiations between politicians and the role played by European diplomacy.