Selenica: NATO has important goals in Albania, our country has been a good student

Gert Selenica, chief news editor at RTA 1 in Tirana, told Kosovo Online that it is of strategic importance not only for Albania but for the entire region that Tirana will host the NATO summit in 2027.

Selenica emphasized that NATO has important goals in Albania.

“We have the Kuçova air base, which is becoming a center for NATO's strategic exercises. We host the ‘Defender Europe’ military maneuvers, which are held year after year—sometimes in Kosovo, sometimes in Albania, and sometimes in both countries simultaneously. The former division between the ‘small’ and the ‘great’ no longer exists, and that is a very good sign, which I believe will also have a political impact. Our country is no longer a target of criticism, and the fact that it is at the center of these agendas brings advantages—both in terms of greater international attention and representation within the gigantic structure that is the world’s main military alliance,” Selenica said, adding that Albania participates in several NATO peacekeeping missions.

He recalled that Albania also recently hosted a meeting of the European Political Community, attended by all major continental leaders who came to Tirana to lay the groundwork for the Western Balkans' closer integration with the European Union.

“I believe that both Brussels and Washington now hold a different view of Albania. Seeing that Albania has been the Balkans’ ‘good student,’ they want to support and encourage it more. They want to place our country at the forefront of rapidly developing processes. This is reflected in the record-breaking pace of opening negotiation clusters (in EU accession talks). As Commissioner Varhelyi said, the final group of chapters will be opened in the fall, after which the negotiation process will begin, with the goal of completion by 2030,” our interlocutor said.

According to Selenica, Albania is gradually becoming, sometimes through grand declarations and sometimes through realistic policies, an integral part of all international military and political structures.

“We can consider ourselves immune to Serbian influence or traditionalist policies linked to Russia. We’ve had regionally significant joint meetings with Serbia. I’m referring to the Open Balkan initiative, which has yielded results—positive or negative—whether included in the Berlin Process or not. We can say we are becoming a 'locomotive' for the region, alongside Montenegro. Nothing stops us from saying that, together with Kosovo and Serbia, we are building cooperation under the EU 'umbrella,' despite existing ethnic tensions, especially at the Kosovo–Serbia border. We hope to coexist in this region and achieve the goal of EU membership,” Selenica stated.

In his view, geopolitical balance is necessary in the region.

“There are certainly several active war fronts. There is significant Russian influence in the Balkans. We have Serbia, which oscillates between the EU and Putin. It seems that the region needs geopolitical balance. In my opinion, former U.S. President Trump made important—if not essential—decisions by moving the Alliance away from bureaucratic attitudes and making it more pragmatic, focused on itself and its defense budgets. Even though the U.S. continues to play the leading role in ensuring the Alliance is prepared for any possible conflict—those happening now or those that may erupt tomorrow—NATO is not just a theoretical alliance, but one that can stand against any adversary, no matter how powerful in terms of nuclear weapons,” Selenica concluded.