Albanian Government Council of Ministers

Remarks by Prime Minister Edi Rama at the Europa Park Forum in Baden-Württemberg, Germany: 

 

We in Albania are very much inclined to see as many people as possible visiting the country.

Albanian tourism industry is experiencing an exponential growth in the number of people interested in visiting the country. Surely, this year was different, but I mean last year. In the meantime, investors are also increasingly becoming interested in becoming part of our journey because of the country’s incredibly favourable legislation and because of the beauty of the country. 

We have the best geographical location in the context of natural resources and Albania is the only country fully supplied with clean energy as the country is almost totally dependent on hydropower for electricity generation.

In the meantime, we are part of a space that is traversed by the Trans-Adriatic natural gas pipeline that begins in Azerbaijan and comes ashore in Italy. 

Albania is a very favourable country to all of those seeking to involve in manufacturing activities because of the very competitive labour cost. I am deeply confident that we offer a very attractive environment for the companies wishing to launch their operations with their manufacturing and production lines because of the young and skilled labour force as people there are also very good at foreign languages.

t is very interesting to see German companies – there is not a large number of them, but there are some of them though – and the behaviour of the people is very good. These companies are very happy with these people, as they feel like they are virtually working in Germany under a management based on high-performance work culture, respectable work culture, its standards and everything else. So, I think Albania is a very good country for the German companies.

Last but not least is the region. We are now seeing results of the Chancellor’s initiative launched in 2014 when for the first time she brought together six head of the governments and leaders of the Western Balkans to sit together and discuss the future of the region. She launched the Berlin Process, which is designed to support the region build bridges of cooperation, implement the Europe’s four freedoms in the region, and work together on a single market without waiting to become EU members. We are working to adopt larger spaces than our countries, so we are implementing the European rules. The European Commission unveiled an investment and economic growth plan last week, a fund of EUR 28 billion to support investments in energy, infrastructure and digitalization. The plan represents a great opportunity and an incredible chance for the European and German companies involve in this plan and to come to the region build highways, railways, build energy infrastructure, gas infrastructure and certainly the digital infrastructure. I very much hope we will explore and find ways with both German government and private companies to set up the team of right people who would have to help us to do things together and implement this plan. If this plan will be implemented, then the region will be in a completely different place in the next decade.

As for the region, I would say that a significant change has taken place, a change to our approach to Serbia. I visited Serbia for first time in last 68 years. And Vucic, then a Prime Minister, visited Albania for the first time as a head of state of Serbia. Today the relationship is good. I repeat, this is the essence of the framework determined by the Chancellor regarding regional cooperation.

As for enlargement, I understand that it is quite difficult to make major decisions if you are to give heed to critics. Adenauer and De Gaulle would have never done what they actually did if they were to pay attention to the critics. Being influenced by social media and newspapers, I believe, it is not the source where you can find the strength to project the future. We certainly want to be part of the EU but I want to be straightforward and say I cannot imagine a house works properly when the grandchildren veto their grandparents. Of course, something has to change in its structure and if I have to honestly answer the question whether a Europe that does not function with 27 members can now function with 33? No, honestly it cannot. Do I imagine the European Parliament with Albanians, Serbs, Bosnians and Macedonians? No, it is impossible. However, this doesn’t mean this is not solvable if Europe’s great powers sit and find a way out to adjust the bloc.

As for the Albanian crime, look, when the Bulgarians wanted to join the EU, the newspapers would write that they would try to kill them. When the Romanians wanted to join the EU, all of a sudden speculations were spread suggesting that these guys eat storks. So any country approaching the EU doors has to face such kind of things. The Albanian crime, what does it mean? There is no Albanian crime for a simple reason. The organized crime is international. We have not seen an Albanian criminal who did not have 4 telephone codes in Germany, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. So these people have already established their own European union. “The EU of organized crime” is incredibly effective as it has no veto, no budget programs, no benchmarks to fulfil and no negotiations. Who runs faster is the one to win and that’s all.

Gutter pointed out something which, to me, sounds quite surreal. How possibly the intelligence services in the EU are so segregated? How come that the data on criminality are not shared? How are you supposed to fight terrorism when you have no idea who is the guy coming from France or someone who travels from Germany to France? This is incredible. While the crime networks face no such problems. They are probably not so good at foreign languages, yet they understand each other very well. So, talking about Albanian crime in the Netherlands, Albanians have now become the worst thing to think about. This is good for politics, but it is not true. A newspaper ran a big headline reading: “Another Albanian gang dismantled” but if you were to read the story, a total of nine suspects were arrested, one of them Dutch, one Belgium, two Poles, a suspect from Morocco and two 65-year-old Albanian men who were guarding the warehouse used to grow cannabis, but it fits best to the politics to describe it as an Albanian gang. Accrediting crime a certain ethnicity is part of the game and of course is difficult to tell this people in Germany.

I would like to conclude by adding something. Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly told me that it would absolutely difficult to agree on opening the EU accession talks with Albania because of Marie le Pen, because of the far right and the elections, because how can you have the power to make a decision, when decisions in the European Council depend on the elections of 27 countries and there are many elections, general elections, European, local elections, so we had to wait for the elections. The problem is that they did not acknowledge that, because I asked him “why don’t you say publicly that we like you guys very much, we want to take you in, but we have to paint the house at this moment.” No, they don’t say it publicly. What they say publicly is: “Ah, these Albanians have a lot of problems, they face this and that.” So a country is pointed out as a troublesome one and therefore the public opinion would think that it is us doing things wrong and it not Macron who has to face elections.

To conclude, a decision has been made regarding the accession negotiations, it is the decision to open the first intergovernmental conference. So our position is very strange. We are blindly in love with Europe and we don’t question it. We are told that Europe will marry us, but how can you possibly marry us when you do not speak with us. Can you get married when you do not speak to the person you are supposed to marry with? So we want to marry you, but we are not ready to talk.

Membership is another story, but I think that the accession negotiations are of immense importance to our countries as the negotiations represent the roadmap and the tool for our countries to become reliable democratic states.

Membership will come as result negotiations. But the negotiations are the real thing to us. And depriving countries of this instrument is senseless. Providing the aspiring countries with this instrument means to help them.

But again it is time to say come and visit Albania. It is only 1 hour and a few minutes away. It is the right moment to tell you to come and visit Albania. Trust me, it is a very beautiful country and you won’t regret. It’s the safest place in Europe for foreigners.

* Simultaneous interpretation

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