Prime Minister Edi Rama’s interview with Albanian public broadcaster on proceedings of annual Summit of the South East European Cooperation Process (SEECP), in Thessaloniki on Friday:

-Mr. Prime Minister, which was the topic of discussions at the leaders’ panel of the Summit here in Thessaloniki?

PM Edi Rama: This is an annual summit of an initiative held in various participating states for many years now. Greece chairs the initiative and a leaders’ meeting takes place at the end, mainly focusing on current issues. Today’s meeting focused on the extraordinary situation because of the ongoing Ukrainian war, its impact on the economy, the short-term and mid-term perspective regarding both these aspects, as well as the aspects of the European Union’s relations with the Western Balkans, Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia. A discussion certainly also took place at the next meeting of the European Council and the accession process was still blocked by Bulgaria. We also talked about the Open Balkans initiative.

-Mr. Prime Minister, a statement was issued most recently by German Chancellor Scholz, who is on a Balkan tour, who has announced another summit of the Western Balkan countries, the already known Berlin Process. What can we expect from this and until this summit takes place, new developments may take place regarding the EU bid of Albania and North Macedonia as they wait for the European Council meeting on June 23?

PM Edi Rama: Of course, the renewal of the Berlin Process after the changes to Germany’s Chancellery and recommitment of Chancellery and commitment of the German Chancellor himself to the Berlin Process is definitely good news. The Berlin Process is, so to say, the line of conduct of the Western Balkan countries, and a space where the benchmarks and concrete objectives have been set and it propels concrete work as part of the Open Balkans initiative. So, the Berlin Process and the Open Balkans are not two opposing initiatives, they are not even two competing initiatives, but they are two complementary initiatives, with the first standing at a principled level, the other at a concrete level. The Open Balkans is an implementation unit of the Berlin Process.

-Given that Bulgaria is one of the founding nations of this cooperation initiative in Southern Europe, were there any relaxing signals during today’s meeting?

PM Edi Rama: The issue of North Macedonia is an issue of Bulgaria’s internal politics, which means that it is one of those issues practically always more complicated, especially when concerning the interests of domestic politics.