Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at official launch of the first European Boarder and Coast Guard Joint Operation (FRONTEX) in Albania, the first ever country in the Western Balkans to sign an agreement of this format with the European Union:
It is a double pleasure to be here today, first and foremost for the reason why we are all here today, a genuine and legitimate reason to be justly proud of joining an extremely important project and the other reason is personal, because I am here today with an already old friend, who, in some roles, by deeds and not words has demonstrated a very sincere friendship, not just to me personally, but to Albania and to the Albanians, and he is the Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, the Honourable Dimitris Avramopoulos, without whom this important project, which is officially launched today, would have hardly been imagined, let alone implemented. So, fully aware of being in an open conflict of interest due to our personal relationship, I would like to wholeheartedly thank the Commissioner for his presence and, above all, his or his commitment to a field where, when he took office, it seemed to me he was assigned to the most mined part of the entire area of interest and challenges of the European Commission, but where definitely great progress has been made.
The presence of each and every one of you here in Tirana in this crucial moment marking the launch of implementation of the agreement on patrolling Albanian borders by FRONTEX, to us is a lot more than just meaningful. It is a significant agreement, an indicator of the EU attention and support for Albania also in the framework of fulfilling our role as a candidate country on the road to EU membership in the future, but it is also important for the fact that, thanks to you and through you too, we would be able to better show our friends and partners in the European Union through a lot more irrefutable facts and evidence expression of our unwavering commitment to be in this tiny part of Europe a credible partner and a completely reliable and trustworthy country also in terms of this tremendous European challenge, and more than a European challenge of coping with migratory flows and illegal immigration. The launch of this project, an agreement making Albania the first country in the Western Balkans to monitor its entire external perimeter together with some 50 officers of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency from 11 EU member states is also a reason to be aware of how important it is to succeed in this project implementation in view of the project’s further expansion to other countries in the region.
This deepening cooperation in the protection of the European borders, with Albania becoming a direct contributor, but also in the fight against organized crime, this agreement takes Albania to a more specific position than to date, either in terms of providing its contribution, or in terms of direct benefit from this project participation.
There are many benefits indeed, as the accord paves the way to closer co-operation in terms of information exchange, risk analysis and coping with migration flows from third countries. And let me tell you something that maybe not everyone here in this room and definitely not everyone outside this room know that Albania has registered an increase by 6.7 times of migration flows in 2018 compared with 2017 and 26.5% more during the period from January through April this year compared with the previous year.
We are not a country seeing the arrivals or the aliens as a potential threat or a problem because of our tradition and we are not a country where no outcry has been ever caused about the inflow of people from other countries, but a country that not long time ago, mainly here in this big city of Albania, a relatively small one indeed, but also all over its small territory, provided shelter to over half a million war refugees, without asking nobody and nothing in return and, as you all see, we are still here and alive and much better than we used to be back then, while in the meantime, in our history we have inscribed a chapter we are all proud of, just like we are all proud of another chapter of our history many years ago, when Albania became Europe’s only country that had more Jews at the end of the World War II than at the beginning of the war, and it turned into the country where Jews migrated to find shelter and a safe haven as Albania became the safe haven where no Jew lost his life and not a single Jew was submitted to the Nazis.
However, on the other hand, having said all these, we are pretty aware of the fact that we live in a time when we have to contribute modestly against illegal migration to the territory of the European Union and we are very aware that this project is both a great help as well as a challenge from which the country will certainly benefit in terms of reputation in the eyes of our most respected European partners.
On the other hand, I am pleased that figures on illegal immigration of Albanian nationals to the EU member states keep falling significantly and the 2018 European Commission’s report forwarded to the European Council notes that the number of Albanian nationals crossing the border illegally to the EU member states dropped by 27 percent in 2018 compared with the previous year, while applications for asylum have plummeted by 32% in the first half of 2018 as of compared to the same period of 2017. Thanks also to the cooperation and understanding on this issue with partner countries that faced this problem and thanks to the amended legislation in their own countries, the phenomenon of illegal immigration by the Albanians citizens has been minimized to insignificant figures.
I don’t want to go further on details, but, without wanting to take your time by speaking about things you know quite well regarding the complexity of border management issues, it is definitely certain that collaboration and interaction can make this complex challenge increasingly manageable.
Albania and Kosovo conducts an integrated border management through the joint border crossing points and indeed the wait time for travellers and vehicles at the Morine-Vermice border crossing has been cut by 50 percent since a cooperation agreement between the two countries entered into force, and free movement of goods has been significantly eased in a process we are seeking to further deepen and we want to move further by easing the free movement of goods and citizens not only with Kosovo, but with every other country in the region, being aware of the indispensability of the interaction and inalienability of cooperation on the integrated border management.
To conclude, I would like to tell all visitors that they have arrived in a country where, according to the latest EC survey, 93% of the population support integration into the European Union. It is a figure that for various reasons certainly cannot be found in your own countries, but it is not a reason for a surprised smile when you hear it because we are not naive in this almost blind love for the European Union that is threatened today by blindness to the history of the European Union. We are simply and just part of a territory that has seen the war not on the TV screens or in the black and white archives, or through the movies on war, but we’ve experienced it first-hand right here. 500,000 Albanians from Kosovo were forced to come here because of the war, as in whole this region the war has inflicted uncountable victims at a time when the war seen in the European Union merely a resolved issue of the past thanks to the European Union.
So, with the great pleasure that you have come to a country with 93% of its population being in love with Europe and hoping that you in Europe will rediscover love for yourself in Europe, I thank you all so much!
