Address by Prime Minister Edi Rama at Regional Economic Forum in Skopje:
Thank you very much!
I will deliver my speech in Albanian, in accordance with established rule, and I very much hope this time the interpreter won’t perform like he did last time here Zoran, when he completely broke my message and failed to get it across. I hope that the today’s economic forum will be a good day for everyone, not only for those coming not only from Albania and Serbia, but also for those from Montenegro, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia and Greece. The participation mosaic is wider our three countries and I think the view of this mosaic suffices to grasp value and importance of this initiative, because this forum has brought together the entrepreneurship people who create jobs and generate revenue and are seeking to move further forward. To them it is quite obvious, not only this initiative is the right thing to do, but, unlike from what many suggest, this is actually a long-delayed initiative.
This region can no longer continue being hostage to its past in no aspect and he who fails to realize how small we are to grow our economies separately, create more jobs, enhance youth employment prospects, he is doomed to be living in the past.
We don’t want to live in the past. We want to project the future through an initiative, which invents nothing new indeed, it just sets a complete and meaningful example in the region, which is the EU example, by seeking to deliver and materialize the four fundamental freedoms of the EU, namely the movement of goods, persons, services and capital.
Why on earth should we wait isolated within our own boundaries and with our backs on each other, as it did happen for over 500 years, while the path of each country towards joining the EU takes its time, pace and prerequisites and conditions that do not depend on what we do, but depends on what others think about. Because, at the end of the day, as soon as we integrate into the European Union, we will be doing precisely what we are doing now without the European Union. So, once we join the EU, we will no longer be discussing whether these four freedoms will be implemented in our region.
It is sad and funny at the same time and even laughable to hear Europeans in their capitals asking us: “What are you guys doing?”
What do you mean by what are we doing?
We cannot read numbers, figures and facts forwarded in front of our eyes, not by our governments’ experts, but by the international financial bodies like the World Bank, stating that if we want our gross domestic product increased, we would be able to do that and increase our GDP by around 2.5% by means of the economic integration only, and if we achieve the level of the European free trade agreement, our GDP could expand by around 6.7% and will keep growing. Why should shouldn’t take advantage and deny ourselves of this incredible opportunity with each of us simply staying within our small territories?
Moreover, when we, just like everyone else, but facing extra difficulties due to the pandemic, but in no way can we afford losing the opportunity to demonstrate the region’s potential, the potential of cooperation among us, and instead we should do whatever it takes to earn back some of the tremendous time we have wasted.
We have no reason to wait for the region’s integration in terms of the four freedoms of the EU to happen once we join the EU. We will do it and we will do it now.
How many times should we reiterate this is not an exclusive initiative of Albania, Serbia and North Macedonia? How many times should we keep repeating this is an initiative open to everyone and how many times should we repeat that anyone wishing to join the initiative is free to do so, but we can’t wait for consensus to be granted by everyone so that we can meet one another. We can’t wait as we haven’t taken over to draw a Balkan caricature of the EU here, with a participant declaring the veto on everyone else not to meet and sign this and that agreement. We can’t do that.
We can’t afford wasting more time as we have already wasted so much time over the centuries. We can’t do things the way two Balkan soldiers who served Sultan and stood out bravely fighting the way up to the top of a fortress and Sultan called for them and offer them reward. He called for them and told them: You were the first ones to fight the way up to the fortress and planted the empire’s flag. I don’t have much time to hear your story, but he who was the second to reach the top, can ask whatever he wants and the first one will benefit twice as much. The second who reached the top, thinking that he could ask for everything he wished for, yet the first one would earn twice as much, said: “take one of my eyes away” so that the other one becomes totally blind.
We have been living for so long taking pleasure and being eager to see others suffering instead of looking into what we can gain from cooperation, but we have already seen how the other goes through excruciating sufferings due to conflict. This has been a long and painful history for all of us especially when it comes to our past.
Whoever says this initiative is an initiative projected in the former Yugoslavia’s dungeons to recompose Yugoslavia, grant Serbia the hegemony, since it is the largest country and as such will take away everything we own, they merely live in a parallel world, secondly they live for politics at the expense of people and not to improve welfare and strengthen bridges among people, and third they forget that if we think this way, we should also then claim that the European Union is a big Yugoslavia too.
If the EU is the big Yugoslavia, yes, this would then be a smaller Yugoslavia. But this is actually not the case. It is nothing more than creating a space, where the EU principles, values and the mechanisms prevail, while in the meantime each individual country invests its own efforts in making progress to integrate into the European Union.
For what reason all the trucks of goods moving throughout this region have to spend more time at the border than driving?
Entrepreneurs operating in trade sector are attending this forum and they know this pretty well. Why should we accept this reality as unchangeable until we become members of the EU?
Should we do that on behalf of history?
Should we do it on behalf of conflicts
On behalf of the pending issues we all now know that they need to be addressed?
I would like to reiterate that the unresolved issues among us cannot be solved by merely denying the potential of this cooperation. On the contrary, the more the potential of this cooperation is translated into welfare, freedom movement, economic growth and perspective, the more it would be possible for the pending issues to be resolved. Because the whole society, all societies, can this way move to another level of understanding of themselves, understanding each other and the future.
I would like to reconfirm that for us, for Albania, this is a strategic initiative. We will keep moving forward persistently. It is our goal that whole movement of people, goods, capital and service is 100% unified with the European Union next year. We have even agreed to employ an integrated system of information on the VAT payment, always inviting others to join us.
What is Montenegro thinking about? Is it thinking how it will address the labour force shortage and challenges by closing the door to the initiative? Labour force shortage is a serious problem facing whole region, but this is a pressing and a much bigger problem for Montenegro.
What about Bosnia and Herzegovina? What is it thinking about? Because I know what Kosovo is thinking about and I absolutely disagree on this issue, since I think all these countries should be part of this process and should do utmost for their own selves, their people and societies. Each day we spent working on the process is to the benefit of the future and every lost day is a day that’s just gone in the past.
The past cannot dictate how much we will grow and develop economically. Quite the opposite, the future can. The past cannot dictate how much we grow in all aspects. This is because I happen to come across the Albanian “patriots” talking about the railroad project. What railroad? Which are these international financial bodies, which are these investors who would throw huge funds required for the railroad’s construction, if the train would traverse destinations within our own borders only, or if the train connects Tirana and Prishtina only? Who would be investing in North Macedonia’s railways if the train covers the distance between Tetovo and Skopje only? Can one be fooled so that he would be willing to throw money and finance a certain sector, which is universally known to subsist on the state budget money and government subsidies in order to balance investments.
On the other hand, we together have the power and readiness to build a joint project and with that joint project in hands we can together go and knock on the doors of all international financial organizations and the European Union and tell them, here it is the railroads network of entire Balkans, with each country having its share, but this entire volume of traffic justifies the investment. Why do we need the railroads? Do we need them to transport our Facebook statuses from one border to the other or to go to war against each other? The Facebook doesn’t need a railroad.
This is just an example, but there could be many other.
Albania, for example, lives on tourism. The size of tourism from region is growing significantly. It can grow a lot more. On the other hand, the other countries have developed winter tourism that can of course develop further and this way it can help boost the economy, create more jobs, strengthen entrepreneurship and ultimately further strengthen the future.
We are here for the future and the pending issues of the past can then be resolved much easier if we turn our eyes to the future. No issue of the past would be resolved for the sake of the future if we keep looking back to the past.
Thank you!
