Germany strives to convince France of Albania

If Germany has a positive stance on opening European Union membership negotiations with Albania, France is the country that has doubts about this step, along with the Netherlands.

Bundestag is expected to confirm Thursday (28.06) the opening of negotiations with Albania following positive recommendation for the canning parliamentary group negotiations, CDU/ CSU accompanied by conditions. But France's attitude remains skeptical. France's President Emmanuel Macron wants the EU to be reformed first, then deal with enlargement. But the German side disagrees.

German CDU MP Johann Wadepul has indicated to Deutsche Welle that Germany is working to convince France in this regard. “We are spending a lot of energy trying to persuade our French friends to open membership negotiations with Albania”, Wadelephul said.

German conservative MP points out, that “despite the critical remarks I have made for Albania, I mean, in particular, that we Germans and fractions of the CDU/ CSU we rejoice to have friendly contacts with Albania, that Albania is a very friendly country towards Europe and we want to accompany it positively on the road to Europe. That doesn't mean we forget our criticism. ”

Even German Eurodeput, Social Democrat Knut Flickenstein does not support the French waiting stance for negotiations. He told Deutsche Welles, France has reservations, but “I think this is a wrong argument, because negotiations do not last several days, but for years and at this time our reforms needed to accept other countries can be carried out. ”/