A high-level spat continues between Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and the Bulgarian government as the latter took offence to comments made by the former during the Bled Strategic Forum in Slovenia this week.
Rama spoke on the Bulgarian veto over North Macedonia’s EU accession path, which also impacted Albania’s, causing a delay of over two years.
“So let me say that the war [in Ukraine] has not accelerated the “yes” for Albania, it is not true. The war didn’t accelerate anything because “yes” was there if Bulgaria wasn’t there [because of the veto], but Bulgaria is there and took North Macedonia and Albania hostage a long time ago while others were ready to say “yes” to us after eight years [of waiting from becoming a candidate to opening accession talks], but being tragically optimistic means that it is tragic to wait eight years.”
He added, “So it was Bulgaria that created this, not Russia, a NATO country that takes two other NATO countries, hostage, while the war had started.”
However, the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs appears to have misinterpreted the statement as meaning they blocked Albania for eight years and called them unacceptable, indecent and anti-Bulgarian.
“It is a false statement that Bulgaria has blocked the beginning of Albania’s EU membership negotiations for eight years”, the ministry says.
They added, “Now the anti-Bulgarian rhetoric of Edi Rama is combined with an anti-European focus and an attempt to demean the mechanisms of the European process.”
It continued that Bulgaria reserves the right to react appropriately, following the principles of international and European law.
Rama responded in English via his Twitter platform, stating that his message appears to have been lost in translation.
“Maybe someone should help our Bulgarian Foreign Ministry friends with the calm translation of my answer in Bled about how Bulgaria blocked the opening of recession talks for Albania and North Macedonia when finally all the others agreed after eight long years,” he wrote, adding he said precisely the same thing in June, referring to the Western Balkan Summit in Brussels.
“If the Foreign Ministry of Bulgaria had nothing more important today than a public statement about something I said in a panel of the Bled Strategic Forum, I cannot but take it as a great compliment for the forum and the panel, including myself! But seriously, this is undeserved,” he added.
