A forum of the Ministers of Economy from the six Western Balkan countries and European Union member states took place as part of the Berlin Process in Tirana on Tuesday, an event that  brought together more than 20 high-level delegations.

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Prime Minister Edi Rama: Thank you very much! I would like to extend our welcome to all the guests in Tirana! I was reading the long speech my team had prepared, but I think it would be best that I avoid a boring start of the day and let me go off script and briefly few words.

First of all, I am so proud of the fact that Albania will host the very first Berlin Process Summit outside the European Union borders and I should wholeheartedly thank Chancellor Scholz and his German team for being very prone to transfer this year’s Berlin Process Summit to the region. I am so proud that Albania represents the region as the host country.

Second, I would like to recall the fact that the Process has been launched under the auspices of Chancellor Merkel in 2014, when for the first time in history, all the Western Balkan leaders sat for the first time around a table, no longer to debate their past, but to discuss the future of their countries.

As Chancellor Merkel stated upon the launch of the Berlin process precisely in 2014, a pretty strong and sound tree has grown. We should now seek to reap the fruits, because the tree is fully-ripened to bear us fruits. I very much believe that at this very defining moment for Europe and for our community of values, which is the common community of the EU countries and the Western Balkan countries, time has come to think out of the box and this is exactly what we are trying to do with this Summit and it is exactly what we are sensing from our communications and conversations with our great friends in the EU.

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of having a rather exhaustive conversation with our friend here from the government of France and I have to tell you that it was a conversation that would have been unimaginable just five years ago. Things have turned around and we see with great interest that there is stronger confidence in the EU about the importance that the Western Balkans has for the EU and I think I am not overstating if I were to claim that today the EU needs the Western Balkans as much as the Western Balkans needs the EU.

We have come together with economy ministers and prominent officials from the Western Balkan countries and from the EU member states to discuss some of the most essential topics of this Process, which include strengthening our economies, including ties with the realm of the EU economic activities.

As you all may know the summit will discuss something completely new that 5 years ago was unimaginable, the EU’s future plan to support the Western Balkans opening up in several ways that will bring us closer to the EU. 

Meanwhile, as for the merit-based integration process, each country must do its homework.

We have waited for this for such a long time and that is why we have such high expectations for the promised new growth plan for the Western Balkans that we are so eagerly awaiting.

Step-by-step integration into the common market will give us a precious, invaluable insight into the economic growth of the Western Balkans region in the next 5 years. So, everything is good and I have to say that now is the time to move forward and make sure that from very promising words we start to see promising deeds.

We may not agree on a number of things in this region. We may still have important unresolved issues in this region, but through this process, we have all learned that the only way to deal, even with our differences, is to try to agree as much as possible and do more about what we can do together. And the more we’ve done things together the more we’ve seen the benefits. And what is more important, we have seen more and more how important it is to deal with our unresolved pending issues.

However, I strongly believe that the better the atmosphere of cooperation, the better and stronger the bridges we build between our countries, the better the space to deal with difficult issues.

 Agreeing to disagree, currently on certain things, has not held us back from finding common ground and agreeing to work together in many areas to see how far we can go together.

I was going through some data and I would like to wholeheartedly appreciate the Chambers of Commerce involved in this process, namely Western Balkans 6 Chamber that have helped the business community, but also have offered their assistance to the governments for them to better figure out the reality on the ground. One of the most significant data and the one I would like to share with you today is that 6 000 commercial companies, 6000 such companies in the Western Balkans have benefited from trade promotion activities, complete removal of non-tariff barriers, joint trade fairs, joint events, which have included commercial companies in the Western Balkans in particular, and support aimed at gaining access to European Union funds vis-à-vis the market.

This is very important for everyone to bear in mind, because at the end of the day, everything we do together is to benefit right on the ground and to ensure larger benefits for people, who need to travel more freely, for companies that want to move their goods more freely and also for the capital and services to move as freely as possible.

Without his consent, I would like to quote our French friend, who is attending this event and who, a day ago, reminded me of an extremely essential thing that one cannot forget, because, after all, what we are building here is not something new for the history of Europe, but it relies on examples from the history of Europe and the example of Franco-German cooperation, it is the illuminating feature for all those wanting to see the future by grasping the past.

He told me he came from the French region of Alsace that used to be one of the bloodiest battlefield of the long France-Germany conflict and he also told me that that his grandparents have seen it firsthand and it was precisely from these terrible sights, from these terrible memories of what the war meant for France and Germany, that France decided to extend a hand of cooperation to Germany.

Word spread about such a bold gesture, so unpopular back then, and this paved the way for today’s Europe; the Europe that for the first time in history made sure that future generations don’t see war. However, now the war is at our doorstep, in Ukraine, and it is essential that we do not see war as a video game, but as a catastrophe, which we must avoid by any means, anywhere and in any shape it takes, even through the smallest conflicts, since our region’s history, which, as we all know, would suffice to ignite not only a Balkan war, but also a European war, even a world war.

Without taking up any more of your time, I would like to congratulate each and everyone that have followed and implemented this process not from the events attended by leaders, not from the family photos of the leaders, but from the field of daily activities with all the difficulties, with all the challenges, also with all the power, dreams and hopes to make this region a vibrant and thriving place for their people and economies.

I would like to thank again the chambers of commerce and I would like to refer to the Western Balkans 6 Chamber, because it has been instrumental in transforming this Process from a process on paper only to a process of implemented wishes and materialized plans.

But as they have already told us and keep telling us on daily basis, they need more and by acknowledging it, I want to remind everyone that when they need more, it means people need more; it means that their consumers need a lot more, their workers need a lot more, their enterprises need more. To this end, we need more Europe in the Western Balkans and for this reason we need more access to the body of the European Union and its many mechanisms. 

And indeed, this is what this Summit is about, and these steps towards October 16, when all the leaders will gather in Tirana. So thank you everyone!

I look forward, everyone is looking forward to the outcome of this meeting and, of course, we will do our part, we will do our best to give more to the people who give their time, their energy, who give all their work to their economies, because we have so many opportunities and the growth of these last years has proven that what we can do together, we can never do alone and what we can do by opening up to each other and conceptualizing the commercial space and the space of investments and collaborations beyond our national borders and transforming this region into a space that is good for all those working people and for all those enterprises, actually makes us take the most important step towards the wider space of the European Union.

Thank you everyone and God bless you all!