Minister of Foreign Affairs of Albania, Ditmir Bushati, attended the informal meeting of EU Ministers of Foreign Affairs, which took place in Luxembourg. According to an already consolidated practice, in addition to ministers of EU member countries, also foreign ministers of candidate countries for EU accession - Albania, Turkey, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia attended this meeting.

Discussions during the meeting focused on the thorniest challenges our continent is facing with today such as humanitarian crisis, Ukraine and relations with Russia, security situation within the EU and in neighboring regions, extremism, terrorism and foreign fighters.

In his speech, Minister Bushati highlighted that "the wave of refugees coming from the Middle East and south of the Mediterranean represents a very sensitive phenomenon for us, because it brings back memories of the 90s when mass exodus from the Balkans started after the fall of totalitarian regimes, followed by displacements as a result of wars in the former Yugoslavia. The wave of refugees as an unprecedented crisis that has hit Europe consists of a series of elements that test everyone's skills and requires a collective answer, solidarity instruments to accommodate refugees, fight smuggling networks and terrorist elements that may try to misuse this situation".

Following, Minister Bushati and his counterparts of other candidate countries had an audience with Grand Duke of Luxembourg, His Majesty Henry.

http://tvnewsroom.consilium.europa.eu/event/informal-meeting-of-foreign-affairs-ministers-gymnich-september-2015/departure-and-doorstep-al-bushati