The acting President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will travel to Albania this Monday to participate in a leaders' summit on the Western Balkans that will allow him to address with other European partners the situation caused by the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
The Tirana summit is part of the so-called "Berlin Process", an initiative launched in 2014 by the European Commission at the proposal of Germany with the aim of ensuring balance in the Balkans in the long term as well as transforming the region in accordance with the European perspective by promoting cooperation, good neighborliness and connectivity and with an eye on its future integration into the EU.
Sánchez, as reported by Executive sources, has been invited to participate in this meeting both due to the fact that Spain holds the semi-annual presidency of the EU Council and due to the importance given to the recent summit of European leaders in Granada in which is considered to have been a turning point for the future community expansion to countries such as those in the Balkan region.
These circumstances and the current situation in the international situation, with the war in Ukraine and the conflict between Israel and Hamas, have led the President of the Government to accept the invitation and be present at that meeting in which he will coincide with other European leaders such as German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the presidents of the Council and the Commission, Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen, respectively.
Other European partners will also be represented, and without confirming whether by their leaders or by other representatives of their respective governments, France, Italy, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Poland and Slovenia will attend.
In addition, all the countries of the Western Balkans (Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina and North Macedonia) will participate, along with the territory of Kosovo (not recognized as a country by Spain) and the United Kingdom.
The meeting is also of special importance so that the EU leaders who agree on it can exchange impressions before the community summit that the president of the European Council has called by videoconference for Tuesday in order to address the situation of the conflict in the Middle East.
Sánchez has been defending the EU's cooperation with the Balkans as well as enlargement to these countries as long as they comply with all the requirements for this. In fact, one of his previous tours to assume the six-month presidency of the EU Council was to this region to personally convey his commitment to this future enlargement.
Sánchez will travel to Tirana first thing on Monday and will return the same day once the meeting concludes.
