Albanian President Ilir Meta explained today the reason why he separated from the Socialist Party in 2004 and founded the Socialist Movement for Integration (LSI). Meta said he left the Socialist Party because it had blocked Albania’s European integration, adding that LSI played a determining role to end “the government that had as priorities only its power and corruption and had blocked the integration”.

Meta reminded that the current Socialist government hasn’t been successful either, because Albania hasn’t opened the membership negotiation yet, unlike Serbia and Montenegro, two countries that signed later than Albania the Agreement on Stabilization and Association.

“I separated from the Socialist Party in 2004 because it had turned into an obstacle for the country’s European integration and it practically blocked the signature of the Agreement on Stabilization and Association. That was the reason why I left the Socialist Party and founded a new political force that was the LSI, exactly to unblock the process of the European integration and I succeeded doing that, because in 2005 LSI played a determining role to bring down a government that had as priorities only its power and corruption and had blocked the integration of the country”, said Meta, recalling the general election of 2005 won by the Democratic Party after LSI separated from the ruling Socialist Party.

“It was exactly the 2005 rotation that brought the signature of the Agreement on Stabilization and Association in 2006, and I must say that at that time Serbia and Montenegro were nowhere in this process and they signed the Agreement years later”.

Meta said the country has not moved forward as far as EU integration is concerned.

“Where are we today? You know pretty well where. They (Serbia and Montenegro) have opened the negotiations that we haven’t, and we’re hoping to have a strategic approach from EU in June, also in the light of the latest developments in Ukraine, but still they (Serbia and Montenegro) have opened the negotiations already and this is unacceptable for a 100% pro-European country like ours”.