The latest Open Balkan summit started its proceedings in Belgrade, Serbia, attended by the leaders of the Open Balkan partners. A series of meetings and events are scheduled to take place on the sidelines of the summit. Prime Minister Edi Rama delivered a speech at the Leaders’ panel, stating the Balkans are just as significant to Europe as Europe is to the Balkans.

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Hello!

I am very happy to see Ambassador Chris Hill in front of us here, who, as every other successful American diplomat serving in this region, speaks also our language and therefore be careful when you speak in their presence, as they understand not only our English, but they can understand us when we speak our language too.

I am also very happy to see today two very important friends, who represent equally significant countries to our region, namely the Turkish foreign minister, our friend and my dear friend Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, whom I would like to thank for attending. Turkey is an irreplaceable strategic partner of Albania, but also an ally in all the positive processes in our region, as well as the Foreign Minister of Hungary, our friend Peter Szijjarto, whom I would like to thank too.

In the meantime, at the previous summit we publicly announced that we had invited the foreign ministers of Greece and Italy to attend today’s summit, but they were unable to attend. However, they will certainly be invited to the next summit in Tirana.

While talking about the Open Balkan initiative, the prime minister of a European Union member state asked “why aren’t we invited to attend?” I told him I would discuss that with my colleagues and that it would likely be invited, as well as that I was very glad there was interest in the Open Balkan initiative and we are starting to see the early signals that the day will come when more and more countries from the spaces – where we are waiting for so many years to be invited – will be actually  invited to join the Open Balkan initiative, and in my view this confirms the fact that the Balkans is just as important for Europe as Europe is for the Balkans and I am confident this will become increasingly clear to all our friends.

I would like to proudly state here today that the Kosovo-Serbia deal on crossing borders of both countries using only ID cards is a solution provided by the Open Balkan initiative. I told a Serb reporter yesterday that it wouldn’t be necessary to spend so much energy if Kosovo and other countries in the region were to join the Open Balkan initiative. Therefore, I would like to publicly express my respect for the President of Serbia that by materializing this solution has actually sent a very clear signal to everyone that peace is the first solution, finding a solution for people is the first choice. Of course, this won’t solve all what has yet to be resolved, it doesn’t solve the issue dividing us, yet this is the right path.

We are here not to simply celebrate wines, the region’s traditional food, and bring people closer step by step, but we are here at the second Open Balkan summit to take place in the context of the war in Ukraine and we are here to launch several steps under such a context. Before counting all these steps, I would like to point out a fact that has taken place in the period between the two summits; many countries feared they wouldn’t be able to secure wheat and corn and food supplies due to the Ukraine conflict. Albania was part of this very disturbing situation as Albanian wheat importers had already signed contracts with Serbian producers in a context when Serbia, just like every other country did, blocked all its exports,

However, it was the Open Balkan initiative and this increasingly solid relation between us within the Open Balkan initiative that unblocked the contracts immediately for importers from Albania and North Macedonia. And we are talking neither about symbolic things, nor about politics, but about food and bread, the basic staple for the people.

Would it have been possible for us to take another step towards energy security? We established an ad hoc team for this issue as the power supply is now a pressing global issue and our state budgets are haemorrhaging as we strive to secure electricity. We will join forces so that Albania is made available what Serbia and North Macedonia can offer and vice-versa. We know that Serbia and North Macedonia are dependent on thermo-power, whereas Albania is dependent on hydropower. Who would have ever imagined that in order to help ourselves by helping each other we can sign agreements to exploit thermo potentials and secure more electricity.

We have agreed to create synergies to attract some of the biggest investment projects in the region but taking advantage and making use of Serbia’s excellent experience in attracting foreign investments.

I would like to conclude by saying that figures speak for themselves. It would suffice considering what has happened in terms of the trade exchanges volume between the three countries in the last seven months. It would suffice considering significant growth of Albania’s agricultural and fertilizers exports to both Serbia and North Macedonia. It would suffice considering growth in influxes for us to figure out how much time we have wasted and the tremendous potential still there to be exploited if we were to consider the data, which are still ridiculous compared to how high such figures should be. Yet they are very encouraging compared to the modest data on trade exchanges between our countries in the past.

The Open Balkan initiative no longer needs to seek justification for its existence, nor do we need to explain anymore, it now speaks for itself and those who have a vision for the future and want to see and hear us, will understand that.

We are now increasingly committed to making most of this initiative, where we invite everyone to join in. I avail myself of this occasion to announce that we will seriously consider sending invitations to other partners and EU countries and no one should be jealous of us. Nobody should doubt about it, why we have invited everyone, why we are invited Greeks, Hungarians, or why Italians will join us too. What matters most is that the foreign affairs ministers of Turkey and the EU country – Hungary, are attending the summit in Belgrade today, as well as the US ambassador in Belgrade, Christopher Hill, is also here.

Many thanks to everyone! Thank you to the EU representative here in Belgrade for attending and many thanks for this hospitality and the excellent summit. It is true that the three of us have hosted and presided over it together, but the hosts and organizers of everything we have accomplished are the masters of the house here and we are very pleased that together we have managed to concretely show a meaningful overview of the Open Balkans.