The Visegrád countries strongly support the integration of the Western Balkans into the European Union. Confirmation of their stance came this past Thursday from the meeting with the Western Balkan countries held in Prague, where the Heads of States, and the Ministers of Foreign Affairs reiterated their commitment to suggest immediate start of membership negotiations with Albania.

Aside from integration, which was the focus of the meeting, the participants in it also discussed concrete steps conducive to infrastructure connections, and cooperation in the fields of energy, security, and environmental policies, with such platform being instrumental in the development of the region and the European integration.

During his stay in Prague, Acting Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Gent Cakaj had a formal meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic Tomáš Petříček.

In this meeting, they agreed on a number of concrete steps conducive to cooperation in the framework of the European integration and the succeeding Albanian OSCE Chairmanship.