ROME (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th December, 2019) Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said Saturday that Albania and North Macedonia should be allowed to join the European Union as they played a strategic role in the region.
"I hope that the European Union will... realize how strategic the involvement of these countries is," he said in his closing remarks at the Mediterranean Dialogues forum in Rome.
He argued that the Western Balkans were integral to the EU's framework and its "logic" because they were part of the Mediterranean region.
"Two countries like Albania and North Macedonia must have the opportunity to launch the dialogue and be included in the European project," Conte reiterated.
France has been opposed to letting the two nations enter the EU and blocked the opening of accession talks with them in September. North Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev called for a snap general election, saying that the Balkan nations were victim of the EU's historical mistake.
