Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani, along with his Albanian counterpart, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Olta Xhaçka, took part Thursday in an informal video conference of EU foreign ministers, which was co-chaired by Romania’s Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu and Greece’s Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias.

The meeting, also attended by the Secretary General of the European External Action Service Stefano Sannino and EU Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue and other Western Balkan regional issues, Miroslav Lajčák, was an opportunity to report on North Macedonia’s and Albania’s EU files to all 27 EU member states.

The meeting was organised as a follow-up to the recent meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council held on May 10 in Brussels where a strategic discussion on the Western Balkans region was held and to reaffirm the commitment of the EU member states towards the European perspective of the countries in the region, ahead of the meetings of the General Affairs Council in June, the Foreign Ministry said in a press release.

“Good news of starting accession negotiations and holding the first intergovernmental conference will have positive impact on the entire region. Progress in reforms and investment in resolving burning issues will be recognized as encouragement for other countries to demonstrate political courage to overcome their problems,” Osmani underlined.

The meeting continued a strategic discussion on the Western Balkans at the Foreign Affairs Council meeting of May 10 and provided an opportunity for a substantial exchange of views on how to promote the European journey of the two candidate countries, by supporting the opening of accession negotiations, reads the press release.