TIRANA, July 17 (Xinhua) -- Albania will start the preparatory process for the opening of European Union (EU) accession negotiations and is determined to do a qualitative job in the 12 months until the next June, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said on Tuesday.
Rama made the remarks during a meeting with the visiting Commissioner for European Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn.
Rama said the European Commission's decision is a milestone which definitely reinforces the European perspective of Albania and sets out the "irreversible" path to EU accession, paving the way for the beginning of accession negotiations with Albania next year.
He said that the preparatory work for negotiations is not that easy and underlined that the government has gone carefully over the conclusions of the EU on recommendations.
"There is a clear time frame for negotiations. The path to EU is irreversible," said Rama.
Meanwhile, during his speech, Hahn confirmed that there is no new condition added for Albania.
Hahn went on saying that it is a process that has been conducted in any other candidate country and that EU needs to identify the position of Albania's legislation relative to EU's.
Regarding the process of vetting, Hahn underlined that the EU is conducting a comprehensive process and is looking into the general situation of the rule of law.
"The better the quality of this analytical process from all institutions involved, the more done in advance, the better will be for the beginning of negotiations. It is a process that has to be conducted in each candidate country," Hahn emphasized.
