Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at the Albanian-German Economic Forum:

 

First, I am very grateful to the Chancellor for his visit to Albania and for stopping by here, which somehow completes the framework of his activity as a great reformer who has been and remains a source of inspiration for all those who want to undertake, or to engage in reforms.

A personality that has provided an outstanding example of how leadership means taking on the cost to do the right thing, and who not happily but deliberately refused to lose the job for the sake of reforms.

A chancellor who reformed Germany, but also a leader of the great political left-wing family, who influenced critically the self-transformation and approach of the left wing as a power of the new century, not simply as a successor of the last century. For us it is a special honour also because Gerhard Schröder is linked with the liberation of a part of our nation from dictatorship, in addition to contributing directly to the fate of Kosovo.

Along with a chancellor who is now part of the history of a great country, for me it’s also a pleasure to be here with Michael who is part of the history of a small country, of an environment like this one, which marks the exemplary beginning of a model to follow in the art of doing business. I was happy because when I met him for the first time, I met a German guy who was hard to read, while today, being about to leave Albania, he’s a German guy who has understood what a beautiful thing is to share emotions with others. I’ve always thought that Italians are Albanians wearing Versace, while Michael is a German guy who learned in Albania that life is what happens while you’re making other plans, and this is something beautiful, as he can prove.

This forum comes naturally in the wake of a much-desired intensification on our part of exchanges with Germany at all levels. I remember with pleasure that we shared in this room a milestone of these relations with Chancellor Merkel, just as we had the honour to host in our home Foreign Minister Steinmeier. These are very important signs not only for the importance that we give to Germany, but for the importance that Germany gives to relations with Albania.

Above all, we are very grateful to Germany also for being engaged in a historical process for the region, which in our vocabulary is already known as the Berlin Process. Initiated with the will of Chancellor Merkel, it had for the first time all the leaders of the region sit at the same table, not to quarrel about the past, but to discuss the common future, the common ways of development, the pipeline, the energy corridors, interaction through common infrastructure, joint development of tourism potentials of the region, and certainly new exchanges among young people. I’ve always believed that what France and Germany did for Europe is a radiant example of what Albania and Serbia can do for the region.

What the Germans and the French did by getting over a century-long blood stream, and by giving life to perhaps one of the most outstanding works of the human mind, which is the European Union, is a fantastic example of how we can give life to a Balkan region that is not anymore a powder keg in the heart of Europe, but a region of peace and harmonious coexistence between ethnicities, religions and people.

I am also pleased to say that precisely in the context of this process, we have seen also the results of the direct support of Germany, which not only historically, in the period of transition from dictatorship to democracy, has financially supported Albania and other countries in the region, but it has also supported joint projects. The interconnection line with Kosovo, which was completed in June, or the beginning of works on the high voltage line with Macedonia in view of this Process, are meaningful examples of the fact that Germany is a country the words of which are always connected with its deeds.

The protocol we signed for cooperation and development with Germany for the years 2016-2018, is also a very comprehensive and encouraging framework to deepen cooperation in energy, water supply, waste management, tourism, agriculture, vocational education, and so on.

I want to put an emphasis on vocational education because to us Germany’s example has been an extremely illuminating example, along with the German dual model which we have adopted for our professional education through the education reform. In the past two years we have seen a spectacular multiplication of the number of young people who have opted for vocational education, which until three years ago was rejected almost categorically by the whole new generation of Albanians.

This has had an initial impact on employment, an impact that will be deeper and deeper. We are all witnesses to the fact that suffice it to knock on the doors of enterprises that are along the Tirana-Durres route, to understand that every company has vacancies that require skilled people. The more we focus on crafts, the more we create job opportunities, but also self-employment opportunities through small business that skilled people tend to start.

For too long in the past, Albanian efforts to join the European Union were characterized by an approach that a German proverb describes at best: “Eagerly wanting to get somewhere, but not making the sacrifices required to get there”.

Generally, the preceding period has been characterized by a great ambition that was not supported by the required sacrifices through indispensable structural reforms to set up a functioning system in every sector, and then in the entire system.

By borrowing the words of another great former Chancellor, Willy Brandt, it has been clear to us that a state with a successful economy cannot be organized as a collective holiday resort. We are very happy that our espresso is of the highest quality, sometimes even better than that of Rome, we are very happy about we have inherited as a culture, as a Mediterranean and Balkan nature, as good neighbours of the Italians and Greeks for whom the enjoyment of life comes before work, but we are increasingly aware that in order to become members of the European Union we are not required to have a ticket to Brussels, but we are required a great sacrifice to build Europe here, to make Albania a European country with a functioning rule of law, free competition and merit.

I’d love to talk at length about the reforms we have made in the presence of someone who is always a source of inspiration, for me also a source of personal inspiration, whenever we have to face the question whether we should do now this reform or wait for the next elections. But I will not take your time any longer and bother you with the figures of trade volume with Germany, with exports, imports and so on, also because the trade volume with Germany has increased, but if I told the figure I wouldn’t feel very good because this figure is lower than the turnover of a German non-global enterprise.

The space to increase trade volume is still very large, but it is all up to us as Albanians, to Albania, to provide the maximum possible conditions which, as history both old and new has taught us, are unnegotiable for the Germans.

We have here internationally renowned German companies, but we have also a lot more space to have them followed by other companies, and this is our effort. We have a very good cooperation with the German Chamber of Commerce that, of all the Chambers of Commerce, is the most rigorous and most critical, of course because they are Germans.

Thanks to the advice of the German Chamber of Commerce, as well as of others, we have taken significant measures to improve the business climate, ranging from the launch of the Territorial Development Agency as a One-Stop-Shop for all building permits, to the online system for building permits which today is available to everybody, and anybody can have today a building permit in 60 days, and even if the administration does not reply, the permit is deemed issued; the fusion of the National Registration Centre with the National Licensing Centre to create another one-stop-shop for registration and licensing and make this process a lot more easier than it used to be in the past; the property registration procedures which from months they used to take have been reduced to 6 days; the new fiscal package that has included business for the first time, in addition to enabling business to auto-correct statements before the audit; the effort to create new areas of economic growth with fiscal incentives dedicated to potential Germans investors, or other investors; to the very painful but necessary reform for the liberalization of the energy market and its further diversification. And so on, not to mention the entire list which is the pride of our government, for they are reforms that require sacrifices, and which of course take time.

But there is one thing that makes us feel comfortable, and this is that unlike the generation of those born when the Berlin Wall fell, dictatorship in Albania collapsed, who lost the essential part of life to get a proper education and many opportunities due to the lack of reforms in every sector of the system, the next generation will not be another lost generation, but it will be a generation that will reap the benefits not only of these reforms but of every good thing that today’s way of reforms will make available tomorrow.

No doubt there is still much to do, but at least we have a government that does not betray the public interest, and above all it has created an entirely new context of relations with the enterprise. Entrepreneurship is not seen as an adversary to the public interest, neither as a threat to the social security system, or as a cow that is there only to be milked, without worrying how and where it is fed. Today, entrepreneurship is a partner in every table, and the decisions that affect entrepreneurship come from this partnership.

They suggested I close with another German proverb that makes the differences clear, but I thinks it is also a prefect slogan for the path of reforms: “Dienst ist Dienst und Schnaps ist Schnaps.”

***

I would like to reiterate the vital necessity for us not to see ourselves as a market that takes place within our borders, and do our best in order to create for every foreign investor such conditions that, whether they invest in Tirana, in Pristina, in Belgrade, in Skopje or in Podgorica, they actually invest in a regional market.

This is why we have taken the initiative to abolish non-tariff barriers and to unify procedures for all countries in the region. We started this test with Kosovo, as a response to the temptations and the nationalist excesses, while trying to make it clear that what we need to understand in this century with the union of the Albanians in Albania and Kosovo, is in fact what happens in the united Europe. So the administrative boundary cannot be an obstacle to the free economic, cultural and social interaction, and to the free movement of people.

We have seen impressive results following the abolition of barriers and the unification of procedures. It’s very tiresome for an enterprise to obtain the same certificates when going from Albania to Kosovo or from Kosovo to Albania, for it has to take them twice. Only some procedural unifications and the abolition of some barriers last year brought a dramatic increase of exports and imports between us.

We turned this example into an initiative for all countries in the region, with the philosophy that we should not wait until we become members of the European Union, to behave with each other as members of the European Union. We should not wait until we become members of the European Union, to make the border between Albania, Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro invisible, as it is between Germany and France or other countries of the European Union, and to facilitate the circulation of people and goods at maximum.

For this we built an action plan which has now been adopted by all countries, as a joint initiative with Serbia. We will be in Serbia in a few days to launch this concrete plan, with a concrete schedule of measures and deadlines for the administration of both countries. There we will create also a joint forum of Albanian-Serbian business.

This certainly opens up new perspectives for entrepreneurs from Albanian, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro and so on, but above all it opens up a new perspective for large entrepreneurs who do not find a closed market anymore, but start by investing in one country with the aim at expanding their business across the region.

I am convinced that in the coming years will see surprising results of this interaction, and we will be much more willing when we become members of the European Union.

The launch of negotiations with the European Union is a difficult process, but nobody can prevent us, even before they are launched, from reading the books, documents and the conditions in order to be prepared.

I am very proud that with our judicial reform, we have basically exhausted a large part of the chapters 23-24 from the legislative standpoint. So, without even launching negotiations that begin with two chapters on justice, we have advanced in the process, and when negotiations are launched, we will be much more forward than we would have been had we waited for the negotiations to start in order to do the reform.

Actually, this is one of the paradoxes of the integration process that, from the perspective of the legislative reform in justice, we are ahead of Serbia or Montenegro, countries that are already in negotiations. They will need to do in this negotiation process, a piece of work that we have already done without being in the negotiation process. We are proud that our model of reform is promoted by the European Commission in other countries of the region as a model to be taken into account and to be adopted in some of its parts.

With regard to the issue of packaging, we have also done a major reform in partnership with all related businesses involved. Thanks to the support we have given, by writing together the package of support measures for the industry, we are seeing how this industry is switching from the embryonic stage of toll manufacturing into a closed cycle.

Today, some protagonists of this industry do not simply work with the material of the commissioner, but have hired their own designers and technologists for “Made in Albania” products. I also believe that the industry has an excellent business card for Germany, because if has convinced some of the largest Italian fashion houses to entrust them with Albanian workers, and at this point I don’t think that the Germans, who are strong in every area, claim that they are stronger than the Italians. So I am convinced that it is a great business card for the German garment industry to cooperate with the Albanian packaging industry, which has proved a very high quality.

The perspective is very clear. Of course, there is need for a lot more but in this regard we have a lot to tell and show in order to attract an increased attention from German investors and create bridges of cooperation with them.

***

We have had important cooperation in the field of vocational education with Germany. First, our basic law on the reform of vocational education has been written with German expertise provided by the chamber of commerce in Germany. I can mention a cooperation program for the formation of nurses, a program that keeps growing. The German side teaches courses here in Albania, and once the final training certificate is awarded, nurses can go and work in Germany.

There is a lot of space in this regard, to have a thoroughly monitored and beneficial movement for people who want to go to Germany, and to have an organized movement to create ensured employment, and above all, an employment that has direct and indirect benefits also for the country and our society.

Vocational education is one of the topics of the Berlin Process. Germany has had a first-hand role, primarily to provide a framework for us to establish vocational education. We come from this some 20 year-long legacy that offered young people only one opportunity: university. Vocational education was completely melt. The fact that the university lane was the only lane available, did a lot of harm to universities, because thousands of private universities were licenced. We closed down 18 of them, precisely because they offered diplomas but didn’t offer knowledge, and because they had turned into profit financial schemes, just like those of Ponzi’s and Sude’s.

The turnaround is difficult because of the mentality created and inherited, according to which if you don’t have a university degree, preferably in law, you’re uneducated. Therefore, our country has the highest number of lawyers per square kilometre in Europe. How capable or incapable they are, that’s another story. And despite having the highest number of lawyers per square kilometre in Europe, we have the poorest judicial system in Europe.