Kurti: Time for Kosovo to receive candidate status and begin EU accession talks

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said ahead of the Berlin Process Leaders’ Summit in Milocer that it was time for Kosovo to receive EU candidate status and begin accession negotiations, adding that he would raise the issue at today’s gathering.

Kurti thanked Montenegro for hosting the summit and Germany for, as he put it, keeping faith in the process and placing European integration high on the agenda.

According to Kurti, Kosovo has democratic functionality, institutional stability and economic growth, and he therefore believes that the time has come for it to receive EU candidate status and open accession negotiations.

“I will raise this issue today as well. I will call on all leaders today, as I do every day, to request the European Commission’s opinion on this matter,” Kurti said.

He added that participants should recall the 2018 London Summit and the commitments undertaken there, particularly the one concerning efforts to clarify the fate of missing persons.

He reiterated that more than 1,500 people remained missing in Kosovo and also referred to the recent exhumation of 23 bodies in the municipality of Zubin Potok.

“Recently, in a municipality in the north, in Zubin Potok, we exhumed 23 bodies—the remains of Albanians killed by Serbian forces in April 1999,” Kurti said.

He said that Kosovo was committed to European Union values, the rule of law, employment and creating opportunities for young people, and that it had “closed the door to the Kremli”.