The next meeting of the Open Balkan Initiative is taking place in Tirana. Prime Minister Edi Rama today welcomed the President of the Republic of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic, and the Prime Minister of the Republic of North Macedonia Zoran Zaev at a special ceremony at the Palace of Brigades in Tirana, where the trilateral meeting took place with the participation of the European Union’s Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Olivér Várhelyi via video link, as well as the accompanying government teams of the three countries.

In his welcome remarks, PM Rama considered the Open Balkan an inclusive initiative and encouraged a broader participation of the other three countries in the region, stating that the initiative will keep moving forward for the best of people.

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Good morning everyone! Dear Aleksandar, dear Zora, dear friends of the region! It is indeed a real pleasure to welcome you today! I am very glad to tell you today that this is a crucial moment of our process, as the agreements due to be signed will define a very significant step forward towards delivering on our goal, namely ensuring full freedom of the movement of people, goods, capital and services.

Allow me to briefly comment on each pillar of the Open Balkan initiative, while renewing the appeal to everyone to join it as the Open Balkan is an inclusive initiative and certainly encouraging the other three in the region to be part of this effort. However, we are moving forward, because this is what we need and what we should do for the best of our people.

Today we will sign the tripartite agreement on facilitating the import and exports of live animals and mutual recognition of documentation issued by our official accreditation bodies, as well as the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding on facilitation of import-exports and transit of goods between the three of our countries, which was already signed last July in Skopje. 

Today we will also sign an agreement on cooperation in the area of veterinary, food, food safety and veterinary medicine in the Western Balkans. 

Allow me to recall the fact that we have been discussing and agreeing in principle on this aspect under the Berlin Process, yet it is the Open Balkan initiative the one to materialize it now. It may sound somewhat technical, but this accord is a milestone in our cooperation on export of food, veterinary medicine and food safety and it offers an incredible opportunity to businesses and agricultural producers. The agreement practically removes a continued harmful hurdle to the farmers and producers in all our countries.

The Open Balkan is both an aspiration, as well as an initiative. In this sense, any step or example of bilateral, trilateral and multilateral cooperation represents another step forward and it prepares the region for EU integration and the EU common market.

In this context, our trilateral cooperation is complemented by accelerated bilateral cooperation. We are signing today a bilateral agreement between Albania and North Macedonia and between Albania and Serbia on mutual recognition of authorized economic operators, marking another step towards facilitating trade procedures between our countries.

I have to acknowledge the fact that our teams have done excellent work towards finalizing the implementation protocols for the last June framework agreements between Albania and North Macedonia on facilitating the movement of people and goods.

Today we are making real progress by signing the trilateral agreement on freedom of movement of people, namely the accord on the abrogation of work permits, minimizing and unifying our demands for citizens to seek for a job and, consequently, be allowed to stay in the respective countries. In doing so, we are talking about concrete things and we are taking really significant steps forward to liberalize our labour markets, creating more opportunities for our citizens and making the region more attractive to foreign investment.

We need to open the region to the mobility of all professionals, students, investors and self-employed.

As far as the freedom of movement of services is concerned, today we have taken an initial and significant step by improving interconnection, which means clearing the way for the provision of electronic services to our citizens. This step will help us expand the list of services that can be provided electronically to our citizens regardless of where they are located.

There is still a wide range of services on which we can and we should further expand our cooperation, namely tourism, which is an area of vital importance in the post-pandemic context in particular and we need to move towards mutual recognition of the tour operators and not limit to unification of these tour operators only.

We need to deepen cooperation with regards to the freedom of movement of capital and financial services, make more efforts to attract global and European investors to our region, offering them a whole new space of imagination and expansion. To this end we should primarily make further changes in every way we can, in terms of the mentality, transiting from the cliché of competition and the market takeover from an investor, creating a common regional market according to the EU rules and directives, and based on political will and authorship.

Through the Belgrade Summit declaration we urged the European Union to explore with us certain key areas, on which we can adapt a gradual approach through the community funds to align with the acquis communautaire in areas like innovation, scientific research, higher education, agriculture, trade and e-services. In compliance with the joint declaration, we have invited rectors and deans of the agricultural universities of our countries to attend today’s Tirana meeting. This is important for them to establish relations and cooperation primarily before we call for cooperation with the European counterparts. We should transform our universities into centres of community development, as well as research centres for regional cooperation, European integration and other vital processes. In this regard, we plan to launch a network of high-level experts to oversee implementation of the agreements we have signed to date under the Open Balkan initiative and I would urge all partners around this table to support the establishment of such a network.

I can go on indefinitely, but again I would like to highlight what I consider the most important part of this initiative. Open Balkan initiative serves to inject dynamism to regional cooperation, whether between the three or the six of us in the framework of the common market, CEFTA and the transport community.

We have been dynamically working with the Regional Council, CEFTA and the Transport Community, as well as a series of other international financial institutions, including the World Bank and Digi Connect in a bid to modernize the border crossing points in order to turn them into one-stop shops. This is about bilateral or trilateral cooperation and the goal remains all the same, namely fast implementation of the four freedoms of the market, and preparation of our countries to join in the EU common market.

I would like to conclude this comment, these brief opening remarks by saying that the agreements we are about to sign today serve to convey a concrete message to people and the manufacturers, farmers, exporters and importers in particular that are already working in this shared space.

The message is that through these agreements, 2022 will mark beginning of a new era, the beginning of something totally different for them when it comes to moving from point A to B and to crossing various borders, because based on these agreements and based on what we are doing, starting earlier next year, once we fully complete the whole framework of the operations of their activities, they will no longer experience all the headache and distress triggered by long waiting hours at borders and everything will run smoothly.

I am sure that the number of people, small and large enterprises, which already work between Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia, will further increase as this interconnection will not only help the entities already operating in this market, but it will also help many others and it will make it very clear that this space will become increasingly dynamic in terms of doing business, while movement of goods, capital, services and people is already a whole new practice.

Thanking once again Aleksandar and Zoran and everyone around this roundtable and beyond this roundtable, since many experts from all three of our countries are involved, I am really pleased to give the floor to Aleksandar Vucic, the President of Republic of Serbia and immediately after him, Zoran Zaev, Prime Minister of North Macedonia. 

Thank you very much!

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After the remarks by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, North Macedonia’s Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, and the EU Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Olivér Várhelyi, Prime Minister Rama told participants:

Wholeheartedly thank you! Thank you Commissioner! I don’t know whether you realize it, but you have actually touched upon a very weak point of everyone by saying you are from the Balkans, although you are actually from Hungary, which means that the Balkans include Greece, Hungary, Croatia and Turkey. I don’t know why, but Bulgaria and Romania seemingly hesitate to become part of it now.

All these countries and all these people are trying to get rid of the Balkan name, thinking this is becoming attractive. It will become more and more attractive, I’m sure and, at the same time, we’re fully aware of the sort of hesitation in some of the chancelleries, but still, having the full US administration support for the Open Balkans, enjoying the full support of some EU important members, namely France and the Netherlands and others, full Brussels support, we emphasize that it is up to deeds and not words to show what this integration initiative is. This roundtable is open to all 6 Western Balkan members and it is up to the other three to join.

We are here.

We will keep moving forward.

We won’t stay put.

We won’t hide.

Staying put by resorting to the Berlin Process rhetoric and the common market,  I would like to emphasize that the Open Balkan initiative is the implementation unit of both, namely the Berlin Process and the common regional market. Those wanting the Berlin Process to move forward, they should join the Open Balkan initiative. Those really wanting the regional market to work and become a reality should join the Open Balkan initiative.

The Open Balkan initiative has to do with work and the agreements we are signing today speak for themselves. By building, for example, a joint electronic system for all Open Balkan citizens, which will provide codes and e-signing to carry out any kind of interaction in the country they wish to stay, in the country they wish to work, in the country they wish to invest, this is a common regional market and more than that.

Providing online procedures and a very limited number of documents to freely access the markets in the Western Balkan initiative countries speaks for itself and I am not going to repeat all the agreements, but by telling our people involved in the agricultural sector or livestock breeding, or involved in import and export activities in this region, it is something extraordinary for them, because we are all aware that we can’t export meat to the European Union countries and this industry is suffering a lot of hardship because of isolation. Therefore, opening up a new market is something extraordinary for them. The same goes for all the farmers and agricultural product exporters that will no longer be obliged to go through various laboratories and obtain various authorizations and licenses by unifying the customs procedures. One of the things people told us when we asked or asked you to tell us from all sectors of the countries we represent was how to survive the stress of working with customs. Unification of the customs procedures by ensuring 24/7 access is nothing else but a common regional market. I would stop here, because I am confident that all of those opposing the Open Balkan initiative, they all know this because it is not about nuclear science. When they say that they do not want the Open Balkan, but they want the Berlin Process and the common market, they honestly want something else because if they want the Berlin Process and the common regional market, they should come and sit around this table, but if they want to other things, then there are other tables, there are other spaces for them. This space has to do with the reality of the lives of our citizens. 

Thank you Commissioner,

I wish Merry Christmas and happy New Year to you and your family, to your relatives, as well as to your small country and to your large federation of countries; Hungary and the European Union.

I am concluding the televised part with this and we will continue with the internal discussions around the table with our distinguished friends and our teams.