Edi Rama, Albania’s prime minister, urged the EU to be bolder and move forward with enlargement before prospective countries risk drifting away from the bloc.

Speaking ahead of a meeting in Montenegro on Friday between EU leaders and their counterparts from the Western Balkans, Rama voiced frustration at the slow pace of the accession process.

“When the [Berlin] wall went down, [Helmut Kohl] didn’t say to the East Germans: ‘Now you have 35 chapters to go through before we are together,” Rama said.

Albania applied for EU membership in 2009 and has been a candidate country since 2014, but only launched formal accession talks in 2022.

On Thursday, a Franco-German paper outlined ways to keep Western Balkan countries more closely involved in the EU before full membership.

Rama welcomed the paper, saying it helped move talks forward, but called on Freidrich Merz, the German chancellor, and Emmanuel Macron, the French president, to “be more like Kohl and Mitterand” – two of their respective predecessors.

He also warned against the EU behaving like an indifferent parent.

“You don’t tell the kids, ‘Stay with the neighbours until you are ready to come and eat with us’,” Rama said.

“Because then one of the kids gets to know Russian gangs in the neighbourhood. Another kid starts to like Chinese dolls,” he joked. “No, you keep the kids all together.”

Rama has recently come under scrutiny at home amid protests over a development project linked to Donald Trump in a protected natural area.

On Tuesday, European Council President António Costa declined to comment directly on the controversy, but noted that Tirana “is expected to align its environmental legislation fully with the European acquis, as in other areas”.

While Montenegro is looking to close negotiations with the EU soon, Rama has been open to joining the bloc on less favourable terms to accelerate the process.

Albania had earlier set its sights on 2030 as the year for possible accession, but on Friday, Rama dismissed speculation about timing.

“There are three things you can’t predict: God, sex, and the EU,” he said.

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