Speaking on the morning broadcast of ERT, Foreign Affairs Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis sent a strong message to Albania that it is “shooting itself” by detaining Fredi Beleris. 

In particular, he spoke of illegal pretrial detention, which violates the rule of law. He warned that the insistence of the Albanian side not to take the necessary measures for the release of Mr. Beleris and, above all, not to let him take an oath, which jeopardizes his possible dismissal, will mean a serious deterioration of bilateral relations with Albania.

He also pointed out that the Greek government has taken very important initiatives from the very beginning, which lead to an escalating tension.

During his contacts with critical EU institutional actors related to the issue of Albania’s pre-accession process to the EU, but also to NATO, he informed them personally and in a very strict tone that Albania’s accession process will by no means proceed with such disregard for the rule of law, the presumption of innocence and respect for civil rights.

In fact, he claimed that he had two ‘difficult’ phone calls with his Albanian counterpart, in which he raised the issues of release from prison and the possibility of taking an oath, as is the case in most legal systems where it is possible to both vote and take an oath inside a prison.

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The Albanian counterpart expressed a positive attitude towards things, but there have not been any tangible results. Therefore, Mr. Gerapetritis considered that the Albanian side is not willing to take any active initiative and, for this reason, already last week, he sent a particularly stern letter to the Foreign Ministers of the EU member-states and the high representative for the EU’s foreign policy, Josep Borrell, in which he sets out the issues.

On the part of the Greek government, he states that this constitutes a serious obstacle to the development of Albania’s course towards the European family. In fact, he sent the message that this tone will continue.

Furthermore, he pointed out that the issue of the EEZ with Albania is a whole different matter, it is not related to the Beleris issue, adding that the tension created is not by any means beneficial, especially for Albania. He reminded that Greece was the accelerating country for the integration of the Western Balkans to the EU and that it is the catalyst in this process.

He also noted that important assessments of Albania are imminent. In October, the report on the development of Albania’s course towards the EU will be issued so that the pre-accession funds can also be released. Under these conditions, he announced that Albania’s course is ‘paved with thorns’.

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