Albania, Italy to deepen judicial cooperation

TIRANA, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- Albania and Italy signed Tuesday a memorandum of understanding (MoU), voicing their will to take cooperation in the field of law and judicial to a new level.

Albania's minister of Justice Etilda Gjonaj and her visiting Italian counterpart, Andrea Orlando signed the document, pledging to intensify cooperation and yield concrete result from the reforms launched in the judicial field.

Gjonaj praised the judicial cooperation with Italy, underlining that Albania had entered a crucial phase of implementation of the justice system reform and cooperation with the international partners was deemed as very important.

"Italy will now assist Albania during the implementation of the reform and creation of the new justice bodies," minister Gjonaj said at a joint press conference.

On his part, Italian minister told reporters that the MoU signed between two countries focused not only on the cooperation between Italy and Albania, but also on Albania's European Union integration and the attention Italy attached to the Balkan countries.

In this regard, Orlando affirmed Italy's support for Albania's EU membership bid.

Italian justice minister voiced optimism that in less than a month time they would have done an extraordinary cooperation work.

"The memorandum provides for a cooperation policy between the judiciary systems, prosecutors, bailiffs services and all other justice institutions of both countries," Orlando told reporters. Enditem