Joint press conference of Prime Minister Edi Rama and the President of the Republic of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić after their tête-à-tête meeting in Belgrade as part of the Albanian government head’s two-day trip to Western Balkan capitals: 

President of Republic of Serbisë, AleksandarVučić: I welcomed the Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama.

 I think that after a decade of silence in the relations between Serbia and Albania, I would say between the Serbs and the Albanians, it was the two of us who started to change the bad political legacy and I think that in previous years we have shown concrete results that our nations, our citizens and our peoples can move forward faster and forge closer cooperation. If you look at the numbers and the level of trade exchange in the period from 2019 to the end of 2022, you will see how significantly the cooperation between our countries has increased, both import and export from one country and from another. It coincides with the Open Balkans, but also with better political relations.

We have always supported activities related to this very useful regional format and we believe that it will contribute to cooperation, improvement of the reconciliation process and overcoming inherited problems from the past.

We are committed to actively contribute to the implementation of plans for the regional market, and most likely you already know that the National Assembly has ratified the agreement on free movement with ID cards only and on recognition of the professional qualifications in April 2023 and entered into force in June 1, 2023. 

Apart from that, we are convinced that Prime Minister Edi Rama will invest more energy to deliver significant results for the upcoming period.

We discussed the Open Balkans initiative, the accomplishments under this initiative to date, and we will continue discussion during our dinner. Of course, we will have not easy talks, but I am confident we will have fruitful discussions. As for the Open Balkans, we launched the initiative together with Albania and North Macedonia, and it brought benefits to all our citizens. It can contribute to a better standard of all our citizens. 

We will continue to have meetings on this topic, and you already know that preparations are being made and a third European level fair will take place, namely the Wine Vision Fair in Belgrade in October and I think it will be an international-level fair.

And of course we talked about regional issues and our often different views on situation in Kosovo, but I don’t think it would be fair or correct to do that in Albanian Prime Minister’s presence, and I don’t think he would do it either. Our differences or ​​our views on how to resolve the problems, leave it to us, so we will leave it to what belongs to our countries and continue the discussion further during the evening. I would like to once again welcome Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama. He is always welcome in our country, despite our different views on some issues, and Serbia will continue to develop strong and friendly relations with the Republic of Albania.

Prime Minister of the Republic of Albania, Edi Rama: I would like to thank you for the hospitality and the opportunity to meet in the framework of the tour to all Western Balkan capitals to discuss the topic of the upcoming Berlin Process Summit in Tirana and also discuss topics of common interest even more widely than that.

Given that the Prime Minister was not present, the meeting with the President will last longer than it would have lasted with her. This will certainly provide us the opportunity to discuss extensively not only topics such as the Berlin Process, but also to focus all together so that the Berlin Process Summit in Tirana becomes successful and success means that we succeed in making sure that the EU funding for the Western Balkan countries increases above the ceiling current IPA funds under the new European Commission plan and I believe that we could make a new plan so that the EC could draw up a new financial plan, so that our countries would be in the single economic market. We are also talking about other aspects, which, as the President already noted, are not always agreeable and quite convergent when it comes to certain aspects, but we have acquired the habit of openly and straightforwardly exchanging opinions and sometimes we agree not to agree on everything, yet it should not hamper us from keeping making efforts and working for the benefit of the goals, that I think are common goals of everyone, to take further forward a process of cooperation and peace and it is up to us to make it irreversible. 

In order to concretely cooperate and work to do our best, we need moments like this that we know it is a specific moment with tensions currently running high in north of Kosovo and as for the situation in Kosovo, we do not express our opinions so as not to influence the situation.