European People’s Party (EPP) has urged Albanian President Ilir Meta to turn back to the parliament the changes to the Electoral Code, passed by Premier Edi Rama.

German MEP Michael Gahler has accused Rama of violating the June 5 agreement between the majority and the opposition and appealed to the President not to decree the changes.

“By voting today to breach the EU brokered 5 June agreement with the opposition, the Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama cast a dark shadow over next April‘s general election which were supposed to be free and fair and better than the previous ones. By doing so Rama clearly hinders Albania’s EU integration. More precisely the breach of the 5 June agreement may very well postpone the first Intergovernmental Conference as the first step for the beginning of the real EU accession negotiations.

Albania deserves much better than that. We call on the Albanian President to send back today’s laws to Parliament. We call on PM Rama to reconsider his position for the sake of the European future of the Albanian people”, MEP Gahler posted on his Facebook page.