Prime Minister Edi Rama is paying a two-day official visit to Italy together a government delegation that includes several key cabinet members. Prime Minister Edi Rama began his visit a day ago by meeting the President of Italian Senate, Ignazio La Russa.
A meeting of the Albania-Italy Joint Investment Committee took place on Wednesday and Prime Minister Edi Rama, and Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs AntonioTajani appeared at a joint press conference after the event.
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Italian Deputy PM and Foreign Minister AntonioTajani: Hello everyone! I would like to thank Prime Minister Edi Rama for visiting Rome along with seven members of the Albanian government, including the newly-appointed Foreign Minister that I would like to congratulate on his appointment and wish him every success in his new duties. For us, Albania is a strategic partner in the Balkans. As you know, Italy sees the Western Balkans and ties with the Western Balkans as a priority for its foreign policy and we absolutely favour accession of these countries into the European Union, starting with Albania, a country that we have always supported and we wish this happens before 2030. We insist in such a way so that integration process can speed up.
The annual EU-Western Balkans summit in December will represent an opportunity to give a fresh impetus to the European Union enlargement process. This reinforced Italian commitment will go on through closer coordination with our European Union partners within the working group the “Friends of the Western Balkans”, which was founded precisely to favour the region’s EU integration.
Italy and Albania share strong historic ties. As far as the Italy-Albania Joint Committee, which was given a fresh impetus together with our Albanian friends today, we agreed on more actions regarding three main pillars, infrastructure, energy, agriculture and agrifood sectors.
I will give the floor now to Prime Minister Edi Rama, who is a great friend of Italy, and who will meet with Prime Minister Meloni later today.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Thank you Mr. Minister! Thank you Antonio. I would like to express full satisfaction at the excellent level of bilateral ties and cooperation between our two countries and I would like to wholeheartedly express appreciation for the readiness and attention the Italian government has shown to further strengthen this relationship and tap on the incredible existing potential in all areas of cooperation between Italy and Albania. It’s been a pleasure because it’s doesn’t always happen that you visit another country along with such an extended delegation and you don’t need the interpretation headset – which I think will offer great relief to the translators who will be paid without working, although I think Farnesina will pay them since they were attentively present all the time, even though it was unnecessary to do so. This means that we share not only the common language, Italian which is the second language of Albanians, but also the political language on a bilateral international level. It is the same language. We share absolutely the same positions on all issues and it honours and pleases us that Italy is our most trusted advocate at the European level and the strongest and most heard voice in Brussels to support Albania and the Western Balkans on its European path. In the meantime, we are very pleased that the government is particularly committed to move from promises to concrete facts in economy, common insurance policies and so on and so forth.
I wouldn’t repeat what Deputy Prime Minister Tajani already, very carefully and elaborately said, but I would just like to tell the Albanians who have been living and working in Italy for years now and have been contributing to the development of the Italian economy over the years and we have repeatedly understood than the agreement on pension rights is about to be finalized soon and we have received the solemn promise from the Deputy Prime Minister that this arrival point will mark another starting point as it is often the case in our areas. So, all the many Albanians living, working and contributing to Italy will finally be able to raise a toast for the glory of the Italian Republic and be grateful to this government that will finalize this very important initiative, not only in financial point of view, but also from a social point of view, as well as in terms of the respect and dignity of people’s work.
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– Which are the areas you expect to invest in and when the issue of pension rights for the citizens of both countries will be finally resolved?
-Whereas the question for Mr. Rama, it looks like that for the very first time Albania’s foreign policy is not aligned with that of the European Union regarding the position of the EU High Representative Borrell on Kosovo-Serbia dialogue. Do you have any comment on this?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: As far as the strategic investments are concerned, the minister already touched upon them, and it is about a number of investment projects on strategic sectors, infrastructure, where Italy has played a decisive and critical role and Foreign Minister Tajani has personally lead the process to unblock the Corridor 8 project after a long and unjustifiable suspension, clearing the way towards the project’s inclusion in the European network and funding construction of the Corridor 8 Project, with Albania having already launched construction work of a part of the Corridor 8 with our state budget funds, and the railway system with Italy being involved in construction of Tirana-Durres railway. However, a lot remain to be done. We discussed the railway line as part of the Corridor 8, as well as the railway linking Durres and Prishtina and Nish and further on in Central Europe.
We discussed energy, with both Albania and Italy undoubtedly sharing needs and common strategic objectives. We touched on Albania-Italy interconnection topic and the panorama of Albania’s energy development, as Albania is committed to becoming a net energy exporter by the end of this decade and of Italy’s interest in being part of this development.
We also discussed the food and agriculture sector, and it would suffice to highlight a single data thanks to the commitment of the Ministry of Agriculture of Italy and personal commitment of the Italian Agriculture Minister Lollobrigida, allowing us to make use of a huge potential and a simple and significant example is the fact that Albania’s olive oil exports to Italy have recorded fiftyfold increase this year alone.
Italy is a leading olive oil producer, yet it is an importing country of olive oil and since we lie in the same parallel with the Italian region of Puglia and since Albania has a tremendous potential for very high quality olive oil, then there is no reason not to be a very favourite destination of Italy, which has started to materialize.
Going back to the question regarding our position for the first time, at least over the last ten years, opposing a statement issued by the European Union’s foreign policy, this position has to do with the fact that the EU statement is a statement, which does not in itself have a problem, as it addresses everything already said before by the High Representative Joseph Borrell regarding Kosovo’s obligations to the dialogue, but there is a big problem that does not correspond to the reality of the last days , and as such we find it impossible to align with the European Union without seeing a second statement that addresses the concern of the last few days, the tragedy where an officer of the Police of the Republic of Kosovo was killed by a criminal group that was clearly invested in exercising terror in the north of Kosovo, which was followed by the decision to declare a national day of mourning in Belgrade.
For us, this is unacceptable, unwarranted, it is even reprehensible, because it is not European and at the same time it is the worst signal that Serbia could give at this moment to the entire region and Europe, and we have requested that the European Union , the entire Euro-Atlantic community should sound the alarm at the highest level, the democratic alarm at the highest level and use all available instruments to respond accordingly to this completely unacceptable message that comes from the declaration of national mourning in Belgrade and as long as there is not a second statement from the European Union to deliver a fair judgment on the last days, we will not align with the initial statement.
Once the second statement is released and if the second statement sends across what we ask for, then we have no problem aligning with the first statement because regardless of what Serbia does, which is what we have to do with Serbia, we do not budge an inch from all the requirements of the European Union and the Euro-Atlantic community for Kosovo, and at this point we are 100% aligned with the European Union and the Euro-Atlantic community, but I repeat, this is the moment to condemn out loud what happened in the north of Kosovo and what then ensued in Belgrade with the decision to declare three days of national mourning that glorifies the commitment of a criminal group to cause terror in the north of Kosovo.
Italian Deputy PM and Foreign Minister AntonioTajani: As to the Italian investments in Albania, Italy is ready to increasingly do a lot more. At a working lunch with our Albanian friends, who will be meeting the representatives of the Fincantieri, as well as executives of CassaDepositi and Prestiti, many sectors where we are ready to heighten our presence and strengthen our investments by getting involved in the agricultural sector regarding the readiness to continue purchasing Albanian olive oil and other agricultural products.
As far as the situation on Kosovo-Serbia border is concerned, Italy has always condemned and continues to condemn all acts of violence. We work for the region’s peace and stability. I spoke personally with the Kosovo Prime Minister, Kurti, with the Serbian President, Vučić, I invited everyone to choose peace, dialogue and refrain from any actions. I affirmed that Italy is ready and spoke with Minister Crosetto to consider the option of further reinforcing the KFOR troops to avoid fresh incidents and victims.
The work of the Italian soldiers there is appreciated by everyone; they have brought peace and are appreciated by both Kosovo and Serbia, and I believe that Italy, precisely because of its role, because of its ability to dialogue with everyone, can continue to play a role in bringing peace in a very complicated territory, but war is never the solution. Solutions are the ones found by diplomacy.
Thank you!
