St. Stefan, Montenegro, 22 October 2026
Good morning,
I am happy to be back in Montenegro. I would like to thank Prime Minister Spajić for the welcome and Germany for maintaining confidence in this process, which brought about the Western Balkans Six format and kept the alarm for European integration ringing.
Kosovo is an electoral, liberal and egalitarian democracy. We have democratic functionality, institutional stability, economic growth and full attention.
Now is the time for our country to obtain candidate status and open EU accession negotiations. For this reason, today and every day, I will call on all EU leaders to request an opinion from the European Commission on this matter.
At the same time, I hope we can return to the commitments made at the 2018 London Summit concerning justice for war crimes and clarifying the fate of missing persons. More than 1,500 people remain missing in my country, and recently, in the northern municipality of Zubin Potok, we exhumed the remains of 23 Albanians killed by Serbian forces in April 1999.
We are optimistic about the future because we cooperate and remain engaged, drawing on the values of the European Union, keeping the door closed to the Kremlin, and focusing at the same time on youth employment and the rule of law.
