Edi Rama

BELGRADE - Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic sent a note of congratulations to Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama on Saturday concerning Albania's success to win the EU candidate status.

Albania to become candidate for EU membership

BRUSSELS -- EU foreign ministers have decided to propose that Albania be given candidate status for membership, according to EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule.

Fule posted on his Twitter account to congratulate Albania before the decision was officially announced.

Pope Francis announced during his address from the Vatican on Sunday that he will visit Albania on September 21 – his first trip as pontiff to a European country.

In a progress report issued on Wednesday, the European Commission said Albania has continued to implement and consolidate EU-related reform measures, in particular those relating to candidate status.

Serbian patriarch visits Albania, nationalist protest

TIRANA -- Leaders of Orthodox Christian churches - including a delegation of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) headed by Patriarch Irinej - were in Albania on Sunday.

They consecrated the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in the country's capital, Tirana.

Officials in Albania are mulling the results of the European Parliamentary elections, which saw anti-EU, anti-establishment, parties triumph in Britain and France and poll strongly in some other countries.

As a result, parties opposed to the European project have roughly doubled their seats in the assembly.

“Albanians have gathered here against a dangerous enemy, which seeks to destroy our freedoms and deny us our European dream,” the chairman of the Democratic Party, Lulzim Basha, told supporters.

“This enemy is narcotics trafficking, which in the last six months, sponsored by the drug barons, has reached dangerous levels,” he added.

The cargo ship Era-1, which was sailing from Greece for the port of Bar in Montenegro, had sought temporary shelter on May 14 from bad weather in Albania’s southern port of Vlora.

After the weather improved on Friday, the ship, which has a Tanzanian flag and a Ukrainian crew, left port without seeking permission from the port authorities, raising suspicions about its cargo.

The Albanian Ministry of Interior said the pilot of the plane, Girgio Riformato, had been arrested after he crash-landed his single-engine Piper on Sunday on the beach at Divjaka, 50 kilometres south of Tirana.

In the same area, police also arrested an Albanian, Saimir Bajramaj, after they found 460 kilograms of marijuana and €27,000 in his vehicle.

“The IEA did not suggest that Albania broke sanctions on Iran and any report that says otherwise needs to run a correction,” Magdalena Sanocka, a spokesperson for the IEA, said.

Sanocka said its report only mentioned Albania as a temporary destination for an Iranian oil tanker, which eventually unloaded its cargo elsewhere.