Weekly press conference focusing on national roads, ports and airports infrastructure, as well as the EU-funded 28 billion euro investment plan on infrastructure, energy and digitalization:

Prime Minister Edi Rama: Good afternoon!

Today we will be focusing on the economy and we will provide information, facts and figures, hoping that, as it is the case previously, you will prepare and report newsreels focusing on the economy so that people receive as much information as possible, without being mingled with politics and speculations.

Together with the Minister of Infrastructure and Energy today we will talk about the national infrastructure, mainly on the national road networks, but also on the port and airports infrastructure, where an intense and radical transformation is already underway and will continue.

I would like to put emphasis on the vision that represents the framework of the entire steps we have taken and will continue to take in the near and distant future to materialize an integrated transformation, for which a new EU investment plan on three main areas will be extremely helpful;

Infrastructure with the railway transport and roads infrastructure;

The energy, where Albania holds a leading position and an important advantage compared to other countries in the region to become a main protagonist in this section of the EU investment package, as Albania also lies on the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline’s route and Albania has a clear plan designed to extend the natural gas infrastructure to North via the Adriatic-Ionian pipeline that will further stretch through Montenegro and Croatia and connect with the European gas networks or other pipeline branches, starting with the one through Kosovo, which is a strategic section;

The digitalization plan that envisages a massive intervention to strengthen digital interconnection in the region.

The essence of the three main pillars consists of a regional impact component, but each country will individually develop these three areas.

We are making preparations to launch a public call for Albanian experts currently abroad and who would wish to become part of this effort and join our team of excellence we plan to set up for the projects and potentially begin to absorb funds under this huge investment and economic development plan. Once the plan enters into force after endorsement of the European Union’s budget by the European Commission and the European Council, we expect to see its implementation in the period 2012-2023 as processes that include this mandate and this budget plan of the new European Commission.

 I would like to point out that in addition to a series of road infrastructure projects; a number of other major projects to transform the country’s ports and airports infrastructure are already underway.

I haven’t noticed, and probably you have already done, but I haven’t seen any of you visiting the site where an incredible daily works is going on to build Kukes airport. The new airport has already started taking its shape, even though the completion phase and beginning of the operations will take some more months.

We are working every day. For the sake of truth, my day starts with phone calls with the minister in the morning and ends late again phone calls with the Minister, who provides information on the progress of the procedures for the construction of Vlora international airport after the project was suspended earlier this year because of the pandemic. I believe that we will have a much clearer picture on the progress of this process in the coming days. The international tender procedures were suspended when the national lockdown was imposed in spring. The process will be reopened right where it was suspended very soon. What we are seeking to make sure is that there will be the presence of interested companies, which are the hardest hit amid the global health crisis panorama. By this I mean companies operating in air transport and building airports.

Once the process for construction of Vlora airport completes, we are ready to launch procedures for the construction of another airport in the southern coastal city of Saranda, the preparations for which have been already made, but our strategy envisages that projects are developed gradually step by step and not at once. Saranda airport will certainly be a smaller one, but with a significant impact on development of tourism in the area. We are very confident that, if Vlora will turn out to be a success in terms of participation and possibly the involvement of a leading international company, then there is no reason for Saranda not to become a successful project. But Vlora airport will also strategically serve the smaller airport in Saranda.

I am confident that with the four airports, namely the Tirana airport, and the airports in Kukes, Vlora and Saranda, we usher in a new era both in terms of the airport infrastructure, also in terms of a new very important channel of the economy with a significant impact not only on Albania, but also on Kosovo.

As far as the port infrastructure is concerned, we will soon embark on a project designed to transform the port of Durres. Our plan is to relocate the existing port, which has long since completed its mission as a commercial freight port right at the heart of the city, now an obsolete infrastructure with very low environmental standards that is increasingly and in a disturbing way hindering steps into another era for tourist Durrës. But in the meantime, it is also an infrastructure with tremendous potential in terms of tourism development and we have been engaged in ongoing talks with international partners. By international partners I partner countries and not private companies and we hope that sooner rather than later we will be able to sign a state agreement to attract an investment, which will be the largest private investment ever in Albania, of course under a cooperation formula with the state.

To this end, we will kick off the relocation process in the coming weeks and launch international tender procedures for the new Durres port, which will be built on the other side that also hosts the free economic zone plan and about which we are very optimistic that it will work as demands keep growing recently.

We will do the same with Vlora port. The existing port is now a sort of an archaeological infrastructure in terms of standards, in terms of services, in terms of the negative impact on the coastal area and the city itself. The vision for further development of the coastline with with the third phase of the Lungomare, or the Waterfront Promenade, which includes also a tourist port, which will be built to create a new channel of contact with Vlora, as well as with Durrës.

We are also ready to embark on a process to relocate the Vlora port and build a new one to meet contemporary international standards on port services.

In few weeks’ time we will commence issuing the required authorizations to launch the third tourist port, actually the first to be constructed in Saranda, for which we have received a fantastic proposal and that changes the whole paradigm of Saranda development.

Albania will soon join a map where it has been missing for decades and which is the map of maritime tourism, in terms of maritime economy.

Meanwhile, as I already noted, we believe that the Kukes airport will become operational by spring. I haven’t forgotten my pledge to transport by air 120 Democratic Party voters from London. These individuals will be picked among the ones who have mostly ridiculed the idea about construction of Kukes airport. If they are watching us now, I tell them to start accumulate credits that would earn them a free flight by actively and intensely mock and ridicule the airport project. The ones who will ridicule more, they will board the plane and will land in Kukes just to vote for the Democratic Party in the upcoming elections. 120 votes through a free of charge flight; this is a goal I hope we will deliver on.

–Mr. Rama, you have often accused your predecessor, Mr. Berisha, of taking advantage of public projects for electoral purposes, saying that he cut electoral ribbons during the electoral campaigns, despite quality and standards of the infrastructure projects that you insist describing them incomparable to the roads you are building now. Si your government different, taking notice that the Infrastructure Minister listed a large number of roads, ports and airports set to complete or commence in 2021, a year that coincides with the 2021 parliamentary elections?

– Given that it is a question that attracts a lot of interest and stirs debate in Albania, and it is about the yesterday’s visit by the Greek Foreign Minister, since we were not given the opportunity to ask questions. What will Albania ask for in the International Court, because Greece has already made it clear where it wants to go with this new agreement with Albania?

Prime Minister Edi Rama: The projects we are talking about are not electoral asphalt, as it was the case few years ago, but they are projects that do not start when the excavation work starts, but they begin when the designing process starts. And the designing process for these projects has started a long time ago. If we announce today that on November 28 we will know the winner of the international competition for the Milot-Fier highway, a project whose feasibility study has been carried out by WBIF (Western Balkans Investment Fund) for the region and for which it intense work has been done during a considerable time. If we talk about Vlora Airport today, we are at this stage because our process was interrupted and suspended in spring, when we had launched the tender procedures. If we talk about the Llogara tunnel today, we do so after having completed feasibility studies, a competition has been held for the project and a winner has been announced and is now working on the ground.

I am not going to mention them one by one, but we are about to fully deliver on all goals of our second term in office.

Let me repeat – and this is not a lack of modesty – the fact is that we do not need any of these to win the election. We are aware of how much there is still to be done, how many problems the government faces at all levels, we are aware of our mistakes and our rights, but we obviously enjoy the understanding of the reasonable majority of Albanians. Our monthly surveys are clear. If the election takes place on Sunday, we would fare better, whereas they (the opposition) would fare worse than in 2017.

These are not projects to fool people. These are major projects and as such they take certain time to finalize. I have frequently repeated that if we are to look at the reconstruction, the process represents the case to distinguish between us and others in terms of the procedures. We are about to complete construction of the majority of schools being rebuilt through the state budget funds and most of them are set to open doors to pupils and students on November 26, whereas the European Union, which will fund a considerable part of the new schools, has yet to kick off construction work in the coming weeks.

If I were to say that a road project takes 10 years to complete after its design in the Federal Republic of Germany, you can draw your conclusions for yourselves, not to highlight how fast we are, because speed has incurred huge losses during the time when the today’s opposition used to govern the country as they launched and abandoned many road infrastructure projects. More than 50% of the funding for the construction of the roads that were declared as complete during the notorious election campaign in 2013 was actually implemented over the past years after 2013. The Infrastructure Minister focused on the financial aspect, meaning that most of the funds have been used to complete the roads launched by the previous government of former Prime Minister Sali Berisha, to put it clearly, since he is the hero of the roads, the dead end roads.

There is another element too. Not only have we funded construction of the majority of the uncompleted and abandoned roads, but we have been also forced to review and change every project. There is none of the projects that were hailed as the roads of the Albanian miracle that has not been either fully or partly redesigned.

As to the other question, I think that only he who doesn’t want to understand is actually the one who doesn’t realize it. The issue of the maritime border was not opened by Greece, but by Albania. To Greece, the issue of the maritime border was resolved with the agreement they signed years ago with Saliu, Luli and Ilir Meta. Greece pretended nothing more than it had been granted under that Agreement. So, to Greece it was a settled issue. I was the one to reopen that issue together with the Socialist Party when in opposition and several allies back then. It was the Socialist Party that took the issue to the Constitutional Court, which rejected that Agreement in a 9 to zero voting.

The issue has been reopened, frankly speaking thanks to the persistence, patience and our readiness in the communication with the Greek side for the common future of the Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who together with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who visited Tirana a day ago, has clearly decided to make his entire readiness and will in order to address all pending issues and the issues of the common future of both countries. So, finally, the Greek side agreed with us. We didn’t agree with the previous government to take the issue to the international justice. But we agreed with the current Greek government to take this issue to the international justice and to a court that has all the powers and the expertise to make a verdict and make justice about this problem.

This is an ideal solution for us, about which, certainly based on all protocols and standards, we will sit and make due preparations as required and stipulated by the procedure to reach a fair and just solution.

So, it is quite obvious what we are looking for. We are looking for a fair agreement. The previous agreement was unfair to Albania.

Others are mental deviations, an expression of evil that deliberately feeds ignorance to serve vested power interest of some mediocre individuals who are seeking to gain spoils at all costs. And they call themselves Albanians! They want Albania just to gain spoils! They are not interested at all neither in the sea, air or the land of the country, but they are interested just in gaining spoils. They are natural- born robbers. And they have demonstrated it anytime they have been in office. Whoever falls prey to them, they simply suffer from the mental laziness, because it can’t be otherwise.

– Is the budget spending in the amount of 7.3 % of GDP sufficient to support all these ambitious infrastructure projects? My second question has to do with ports. Don’t you find such promises a bit exaggerated? I am asking this question taking notice of the fact that in 2016 you have issued permit for the construction of the Karpen port and another permit for construction of another tourist port adjacent to the existing port of Durres, while the new Karpen port was supposed to be one of the biggest investments ever in Europe.

–A question for Minister Balluku; As far as the road infrastructure is concerned, I didn’t see the road Qukes-Qafe Plloce on the chart you showed a little bit earlier. What is happening with this road project? The second question has to do with the Tirana-Durres railway. If I am not mistaken, the funding has been secured for years now, but we do not know how the process is going. Have the tender procedures been launched to start the construction of the railway?

Prime Minister Edi Rama: These are not promises. These are projects already underway. Promises are poetry, but this is all about prose. Promises are dreams, ambitions, desires and good will to achieve a goal, but these are tangible projects. When we talk about ports, we don’t mean promises. Instead, we talk about currently advanced processes. In few weeks’ time, the international tender procedures will be launched for the construction of the new port in Durres along with the entire economic zone. The process for construction of the new Vlora port will begin in few weeks’ time. These are not promises. As I already said a bit earlier, we are in talks with a friendly country for construction of the big tourist port in Durres. Of course, I cannot provide more details, but this is an advanced process, because in order to transform the port of Durres into a tourist port, which will be a kind of a town built on water right there where mountains of chrome minerals pile up today, we should first make sure that the existing port and its activities are relocated. Construction of new tourist port in Saranda is not a promise, but a process about to complete and the investment is slated to begin in the next few months.

So, these are not promises, but underway advanced processes that are being matured after many years of efforts and hard work. Of course we have also suffered setbacks and our frustrations from unsuccessful endeavours, just like it was the case of the Karpen port and these are things that happen everywhere. However, what we were talking about at the today’s conference are not promises. These are all projects. The Milot- Fier highway is not a promise. It was actually a promise in 2013, when I insisted on the Blue Corridor and Saliu laughed at this project as if being a road worker wondering up and down repairing and destroying the existing roads and thus setting world record.

Do you know which one is considered the world record?

If you drive along the road linking Shkodra and Muriqan, you would find 28 different standards applied along the entire stretch of that segment. Imagine if you were to put on my jacket, Erion Brace’s shirt, trousers of Bashkim Fino and Sali’s bulletproof vest. Just imagine what kind of scarecrow you would look like. Some 28 different standards!

While we are standardizing every road segment and the Minister provided a very significant data. From around 400.000 vehicles in 2013, more than 600.000 vehicles move along the country’s road networks today, while the number of accidents has dropped to around 100 accidents from more than 300 previously. This is of course a result from the joint effort of the State Police and the structures dealing with construction and improvement of the infrastructure.

We are seeking to improve and increase the road safety standards.

What kind of safety used to provide the roads built by the previous government? Could one possibly tell me what safety standards one would find along the road linking Shkodra and Tirana?

We have significantly improved safety standards, yet we are still far from reaching the required standards. Of course, drivers cannot precisely measure the sheep’s speed when a sheep crosses the road, but if we are to remove the sheep and cows from roads, if we remove the springboards, water pools and warehouses from the roads, and if we provide people a corridor that if you enter Albania via the Muriqan border crossing you are also provided a corridor stretching and leading you to Vlora and no domestic or wild animals cross the road while you are driving, then road safety would be certainly taken to another level. Take a look at the roundabouts to figure out the catastrophic situation we inherit in terms of roads safety.

This is all a process. I think we are right in the middle of the great turning point we have already embarked on. We have yet to cross this long curve and we should keep moving forward until we get out it in all aspects.

Minister Belinda Balluku: All the required information will be downloaded and be available on the official website of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy and while a brief presentation on every area, city or region across the country will be posted on the Instagram and it will take just a click for you to find whole set of required data about each project that is being advanced in that area. You can check any project online. The construction of the Qukes-Qafe Plloçe road –I am not going to comment, but everyone I believe knows the whole story – so construction of the road’s sections have been announced, but no funding was allocated in advance. Let’s take the third section of the road, for which a funding of 50 million euros was allocated to support the project in 2011, but the funding we found back then was only 25 million euros and we have today launched all the procedures to complete the segment and secure the due funding. The Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy has carried out the entire process of the technical studies about the elements that need to be added and included in the sections of the road. But the Qafe-Plloçe road project is an extreme case, as the Prime Minister has already repeated several times to the media, as one of the bridge pier shafts is projected to be 17 meters below the other pier shaft. So, the design is very problematic. We have conducted a new technical study. We have encountered technical problems, including funding. They are all projects that have been launched without securing the due funding in advance. This is to provide an additional argument why our projects have nothing to do with the electoral projects, so they are projects designed after an in-depth study. They are projects that we don’t launch without securing funding first and they are projects for which a timeline and a schedule is set first about the tender procedures, the contract and implementation on the ground.

In the case of the Qukes – Qafe Plloçe, the Ministry of Finance is currently negotiating with two big international banks to complete the three sections of the road. If you are interested, I can tell you their current state. Around 86.52% of the physical construction work has completed on the first section, but the accepted expense reports on project spending are around 72%, because there are discrepancies between the estimated project costs and the work on the ground. It is not the companies to be blamed for abuse with the projects, because the volume of work on the ground has been much larger than the estimated volume included in the design. However, we are working to restore legitimacy of these projects. We can’t accept everything that is result of the lack of the technical projects. So, the Ministry of Finance will soon conclude the negotiations with one of the banks and in the meantime the Saudi Fund will finance 50% of the third section, which is estimated 25 million euros. We are in the meantime making efforts to provide funding for the two remaining sections that have been blocked for years now. Data on the progress of the project will be available via the presentation, which will become accessible and available on our website shortly after this press conference.

In the meantime, I would like to provide some information on the Tirana – Rinas – Durres and the Durres – Rinas – Tirana railway project. I would like to highlight a fact that we have been one party or participating side in designing the criteria and procedures, but still we are one party, while the other party is the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and this project too has been constantly subject to political attacks. And by this I don’t mean the opposition only, as this project has been rejected by everyone. I want to point out a fact. Together with the Prime Minister, we had to intervene with the EBRD President himself in order to speed up the process a year ago, as we faced “No Objection”. The EBRD-funded projects require a “No Objection” decision regarding the participants in the competition and tender and we are talking about the technical project. The Prime Minister has contacted the EBRD President himself in order for the technical project to be green lighted. While the  No Objection to the financial part was granted on September 21. A leading Italian company has been announced as winner, although 14 companies took part in the process and only six of them were qualified for the final phase. We were under attacks and alleged links between us and the wining company. We don’t either know it, nor have we ever contacted it. We have also been accused of incredible contacts with all big international companies that we allegedly influence and do whatever with them we like to do. The company has declared winner and it has passed through all EBRD filters during a 24-month period and it has been granted the “No Objection” from EBRD. I want to emphasize this and I would like that you verify it by contacting its representatives in Albania. A lot has been speculated over the railway project. We are now in the final stage that includes elements before the contract is signed and work will kick off immediately. In the meantime, we have started application with EBRD for the second phase of the railway and it has to do with the grand Tirana train station. The Ministry of Finance has filed the request with the EBRD and we remain hopeful the request will be approved soon.

–Mr. Prime Minister, what projects will present Albania to compete under the EU’s new investment package for the Western Balkans and which is your ambition to benefit under these funds? Thank you!

PM Edi Rama: It is still too early to talk about this, as we have to set up a special team of experts first which will be tasked with preparing projects under this investment plan. In the meantime, we will have to wait for the plan to be approved by the European Council first and we will certainly start our work shortly after. So, it is still too early to talk about this. The EU will set aside a total of 28 billion euros, with nine billion in grants and one billion euros available as a sovereign guarantee fund for the amount of 20 billion euros in loans. So, it is actually a fund of 28 billion euros, plus 1 billion as a sovereign guarantee fund. I believe this is a historic opportunity for us and we will do utmost efforts to best take advantage of t.

–In March 2013, when you were seeking to seize power, while presenting your campaign program on infrastructure and tourism, you said that Blue Corridor leading to Albania’s coast, and the Green Corridor, which started in Hani Hotit and ended in Kapshtica, were your two ambitious infrastructure projects. During your term in office, you replaced these terms with the metaphor of “the roads abandoned on the roads.” How many parts of these two corridors have completed?

PM Edi Rama: Look, you can see it for yourself.

– Will all these new road segments, including the Blue Corridor, the Llogara Tunnel, be free to be used by the citizens or will they be also required to pay tolls, just like it is the case with the so-called the Nation’s Road?

PM Edi Rama: The two options don’t exclude each other. The new road segments will be used by citizens either for free or they will have to pay tolls. This means, it all will depend on how fast you wish to arrive in the destination you are driving to. If you want to arrive there as soon as possible, then you would take the fast lane and you will have to pay for that. If you will choose to drive through the alternative roads, then you will pay nothing. There is an existing road stretching to Llogara, the one we all drive along. Whoever wishes to continue to travel along that road and enjoy the stunning landscape he will be able to do so. I personally like it a lot. The Llogara road is one of my most-sought pleasures when I travel across Albania and I believe that I will want to do so in the future, even once the construction of tunnel completes and becomes operational. If you want to take a shorter and faster road driving through the tunnel, then you will have to pay. It is as simple as that.

Don’t forget that the Milot – Fier highway is an estimated EUR 1.2-1.4 billion investment. As such, it is a massive investment, the biggest direct investment in the Albanian economy, and it is a private and not a state budget investment. It is the private company that will build the road and a toll will be imposed, but it will also construct the secondary alternative roads, which will of course meet better, and much higher standards than the existing ones and which will be the alternative to the alternative given the lack of a decent legacy. A miserable legacy and what we have done there has been simply a pretty significant yet insufficient improvement. I am aware of this.

– Mr. Prime Minister, a few weeks ago at a meeting with local residents in Vlora, you pledged that the tender for the Vlora airport would be launched in the early days of October. We are almost at the end of the month. Can you name an accurate date when the tender procedures will open?

How would you pay the tickets for the 120 Kukes residents currently living in London to fly and land in new Kukes airport? Will you pay them through state budget or your own personal budget?

Since you said that you would fare better than in the 2017 elections if the polls were to take place this Sunday, how many seats would you secure in the new parliament, 65, 67 or 74 seats?

PM Edi Rama: We are living a phase of our public life where the mathematics is being hit hard. So, I don’t know, does it turns out that we will 65 seats when I say that the Socialist Party will fare better than in the 2017 elections? I understand the influence of the multiplication chart and the division math table, because it now turns out that 10 divide by 3 is 3 and you saw it for yourselves, I believe. But, to be serious, I have a question for you. Do you know how much you pay in taxes? I certainly think you pay taxes, but do you personally know how much you pay in taxes? What is your monthly salary and how much do you pay in taxes? The monthly salary is something confidential, but how much do you pay in income tax?

– If I were to tell how much of my monthly salary is paid in income tax, then everyone would find out my salary. I pay a considerable amount in taxes.

PM Edi Rama: What is the percentage of the salary you pay in taxes?

– It has been a considerable amount on my annual declaration of income.

PM Edi Rama: I know, but what is the percentage you pay in taxes? You don’t know it. No problem. I have no reasons to provoke you, I just asked this question to say something else. This question was not personal, but I happen to hear a lot saying, especially those who have no idea how much taxes they pay or those who pay no taxes at all, but this is not the case, however they say “our taxes.” If these individuals who raise voice about “our taxes” were to pay taxes and know how much they pay in taxes this would represent a significant step forward. However, you have no reasons to worry whether it would be a flight on your taxes, because it won’t be like that, and of course I will not pay for it, but you will certainly be informed also on how the flight of the 120 Kukesi citizens will take place so they vote for the Democratic Party by providing them a free of charge flight, because of their countless slurs upon the Kukes airport project, claiming that the project was a game or a 3-D lie. This is the idea.

It is a very benevolent idea and it has no ill wishes for anyone, but it is really a great misfortune since, even today, many do not want to understand that projects don’t begin when they complete. They start at the designing table and it takes a long way to go from the project idea to its implementation and the process has its own surprises. You rightly reminded me of what I really said about the Vlora Airport, but I explained it a bit earlier that it is not 100% up to us. I can even say that it is absolutely not up to us in this moment, because we need to make sure that reopening of the tender would not lead to the failure of the process. We need guaranties that the interested companies, or companies that may show interest in the project will be provided the opportunity to participate in the tender process. This is the problem and nothing else prevent us from reopening the tender process, but if we are to do so in two weeks’ time or in the next 20 days, then nobody would show up to take part and the process is then deemed to fail, but we don’t want the process to fail. The process was delayed because of the pandemic, the blow entire industry of airports and commercial air companies have unfortunately suffered because of the pandemic.

–In the government program in 2013, you included modernization of the railway network and integrate it in the European railway corridors and link this network with the country’s main ports. What is the condition of the Albanian railway seven years later?

– I followed your TV debate on the incinerators few days ago and I want to ask a question. A Skopje court decision over the road accident in the city of Kumanove purportedly involving Minister Ahmetaj in 2017 says that Mr. Mirel Mertiri was travelling with Mr. Ahmetaj. The winner of the contract for construction of the incinerator in Elbasan is the company owned by the Mr. Mertiri’s wife. Meanwhile, the contract for construction of the incinerator in Fier has been awarded to Mr. Klodian Zoto, the assigned lawyer of Mr. Mertiri. An investigation by BIRN has found that Mr. Zoto is also linked with the Tirana incinerator. Have you ever doubted about the way how the concession contracts on construction of the incinerators have been awarded and why haven’t referred the case to the Special Prosecution Office (SPAK) in order to clear any cast of doubt on this corruption affair?

A question for Minister Balluku; Given that we are provided the opportunity to ask you today, a group of oil women workers have joined the hunger strike staged by oil workers in Ballsh. Given that you are a woman, are you worried that these women are risking their lives and have you been mulling any solution to this issue?

PM Edi Rama: Apologizing first to the Minister, I would like to answer this question, reiterating once again that no pressure, no ultimatum of whatsoever doesn’t work with me and this government. As far as the case of the Ballsh oil refinery workers is concerned, I have clearly stated and constantly repeated that this is not the case when facing a party. We are all part of a family and we have no accounts to settle with the oil workers, because this is about a private relationship, but given face great difficulties and refuse to become part of the state benefit assistance, according to the existing law, we are ready to discuss and seek a solution to their plight and problem that hasn’t been caused by the government  and we don’t possess the magic wand that we can wave and resolve it. They should stop the hunger strike, if they want to talk with us, because strikes are staged to sensitize and raise awareness. We don’t need to have our awareness raised about this issue, as we are fully aware since day one. This is not going to work through ultimatum, pressure, blackmails, threats and expressions like “salaries first and then we sit and talk.”

I feel very sorry for those who have undertaken such an initiative, because it is certainly not easy at all to sleep outside your home, but I am ready, even today, to start and engage in reasonable talks with them. It is the easiest thing to say we are going to stage a strike and state that the government should do this and do that. Other people take to the streets and say build the sewerage system today or otherwise we will block the road. Where are we?

We are not resting and we haven’t turned our back on anybody. We are doing everything we can and everything we can do, but if an entire city is full of illegal constructed buildings, there will definitely be flood problems. Even there we did not sit idly by. We have built sewers; we will continue to build them. But not all things can be done in the blink of an eye.

Nobody would be able to win anything by resorting to pressure against me and our government. This should be taught to everyone. It is impossible for them!

Regarding the railways, the Minister provided a full explanation about the Tirana-Durrës railway. It is a process launched many years ago with the EBRD, which will fund the project and it has taken several years. Infrastructure projects are not houses that are built in a relatively short time. They are complex, massive projects, but they are all in the process. When I mentioned this project 2013, I did not mean it will complete in 2017. So that’s all in the process.

Meanwhile, I refuse to answer the other question, because I am not the kind of the person who looks through the keyhole to see who is the husband of who and who travels with who. This is not my job I am tasked with. My job is to tell you only this: look at the state of the urban waste in the past and today. Look at the current state of Sharra landfill and waste treatment plant; consider the situation in Elbasam Fier and elsewhere in the past. It is as simple as that. I don’t deal with procedures, but I see the outcome. Then, if there are problems with the procedures, they can be solved by other institutions, and it is not me to resolve them. However, I know one thing; slander, accusations, fabrications, fabrications, nonsense, more than this time, all combined against a fantastic modernization that has been taken place, because what has been done is fantastic. Whoever doesn’t see it, he either doesn’t want to see and insists not to see, or he is incurable from blindness caused by anger. what happened is fantastic. Level A international standards. Then, procedures are not my business at all. I do not deal with procedures.

– … [inaudible] is one of the government objectives. I would like to know what is happening with Vlora Thermal Power plant given that it is a suspended project for many years now and Minister Balluku, if I am not mistaken, has stated at a meeting in Fier that solutions to this project are being explored. Do you have an answer today? What is happening also with the Orikum – Dukat road project? Will the project begin in 2021, taking notice that this is one of the most controversial concession projects over the past few years?

Minister Belinda Balluku: All the concession contracts and projects have been subject to discussions over the past years. Not only that, mentioning the word concession has become scary nowadays, although they are procedures applied all over the world and it was not us to invention them. Such practices are common around the world and we do them too, as they help the state budget. Albania is a developing country under construction and it has turned into a big reconstruction site and it will remain as such for several coming decades and not everything can be covered by the state budget.

I will start with the Orikum – Dukat road, construction of which has been delayed because of the pandemic. The final deadline for meeting the criteria and award the contract was October 3. However, since we faced the difficult situation due to the lockdown, the deadline has been postponed until November 20. The concessionary company should meet all the required criteria by November 20 and kick off the construction work shortly afterwards. It is a condition imposed by the Ministry of Infrastructure, since the project is closely linked with the Llogara tunnel project. Given that we are seeking to start the work to construct the Llogara tunnel by spring 2021, the Orikum-Dukat road project should advance too, completing this way a very important segment, linking Tragjas with the exit of Vlora bypass road and the entire access infrastructure from Vlora and the entire southern Albania completes.

As far as the thermal power plant in Vlora is concerned, as you already know, two tender processes have been carried out, without mentioning here the problems we have had with an earlier contract funded by the World Bank and the Albanian Power Corporation, while a loan is being paid even today, but the entire process has yet to complete because of the technical conditions, including transition from the coal-powered to gas or diesel-powered system, as the initial project envisaged, as well as the necessary cooling process for every coal or gas-powered thermal electricity plant. There is a study concerning the sea temperature and other aspects.

I will now return to the latest solution we have provided following the participation of three big companies. The three failed to offer a valid bid, be it a technical one so that we could then move to the financial offer, but the three failed. So, after a long conversation with the U.S. Department of energy and after the meeting with the Secretary for the Energy last January, we reached a very important deal, certainly also thanks to the hard work by Ambassador Kim, for the project to be part of the package of the agreement we signed few days ago, right at this very hall, with the U.S. government representative, an intergovernmental agreement in the area of energy. The first contract on development and construction of the Skavica hydro-power plant with the company Bechtel signed here. In the meantime, we are about to finalize all steps towards signing of the agreement with another leading U.S. company that has been suggested by the Department of Energy to build a gas-powered plant and make the Vlora Thermal Power plant operational.

What we have also achieved under this agreement, which I hope we will sign soon, is a project designed to turn a part of Vlora’s industrial zone into a port for distribution of the liquefied gas, making Vlora Thermal Power plant fully efficient in energy generation, but also turning Vlora and whole Albania into a liquefied gas hub in the Western Balkans. As of today, this is made in what the experts call as a small scale, or for the households consumption, like it is the use of gas for heating and cooking. While the construction of this navigable port in Vlora would turn Albania into a very important energy hub for liquefied natural gas, not to mention all the geopolitical development the cooperation with the United States brings to the region and Albania.

PM Edi Rama: I believe we exhausted all the topics we had to talk about today, also thanks to your questions.

Wear face masks as soon as you leave your homes, respect social and physical distances, wash your hands frequently and we will stay in touch about everything.

Thank you very much!