Albania tries hard to get EU candidate status in June

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama indicated on Monday his country would try hard to get the status of the European Union (EU) candidate by June.

"The Albanian government will be held accountable for what belongs to the government. We shall make our best so that June turns out to be the time of the proper decision on Albania," Rama said, in response to questions about the government's responsibility if Albania fails to get the status of the EU candidate country by June.

During the news conference "2013 in Review" and the work of the government since it came to power, Rama said "I reiterate, we remain hopeful that the extremist forces which influenced into the undesirable decision-making will have no affect this time to our path of European integration."

"The EU has positively assessed Albania's steps, the job done by the new government and setting June as the deadline for getting the status is significant," Rama said.

Speaking about the "extremist" forces in the EU, Rama said that, "They are EU concern as they are trends of a policy that runs counter to the EU values and ideals. It is not up to us to resolve their issues, but we have to make the utmost so that not to get conditioned by these trends."