Work began earlier today as part of the project designed to upgrade and modernize the old aerodrome in the south-central Albanian town of Kuçova to transform the facility into a deployable NATO tactical base. The project is as ambitious as crucial to Albania’s national security, but most importantly for regional security. The upgrading work that kicked off today will include renovating the runway, taxiways, storage facilities and flight control and safety infrastructure and access roads.
Transforming the communist-era Kuçova aerodrome into a NATO air base to be used for alliance operations represents a great opportunity for the Albanian army to boost national capacities and modernize air forces.
Prime Minister Edi Rama, who attended the ceremony marking the start of the upgrade project, stated “NATO’s choice to pick this space as a new environment to tackle new security challenges and transform the facility into an Alliance’s tactical base confirms the fact that tiny Albania is, nevertheless, an added value to this alliance, which brings together the nations that believe in certain values and principles worth fighting for.”
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“When you take a look at the Adriatic region and see the southern flank of the European continent, it is very important to maintain peace and prosperity. It is for this reason that Albania in the Balkans, especially in the Western Balkans, becomes a country of critical importance.” This is a statement made by the U.S. Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Tod D. Wolters as he commented on the importance of our country’s strategic position as a key location in the Western Balkans and Europe during a NATO documentary on the Kuçova air base.
NATO’s choice to pick this space as a new environment to tackle new security challenges and transform the facility into an Alliance’s tactical base confirms the fact that tiny Albania is, nevertheless, an added value to this alliance, which brings together the nations that believe in certain values and principles worth fighting for.
We definitely welcomed the NATO decision, not only because it not only creates a new value in our entire defence infrastructure, but at the same time it conveys fresh energies in our effort to take advantage of our country’s strategic position as much as possible both intelligently and pragmatically, in geographic terms and our position in NATO, in political and military terms.
We are pretty aware of the size of our country and the volume of our contribution vis-à-vis other member countries, but also thanks to the joint work, which has taken cooperation with the United States to a whole new level, and, thanks to the support we are constantly receiving from the U.S. and its defence structures, we are becoming more and more self-aware that if we invest intelligently and continue our path of strengthening and at the same time enhancing the quality of our military, as it should be, we can be an added value to NATO with other projects.
Actually today we see a project on the path to its implementation, a project that sounded really incredible to many when the news about it was first announced. I vividly remember how the announcement was mocked and met with suspicions three years ago, when the news was announced to the public and how many comments and opinions ensued throughout the process, with many claiming this moment today would never come and that Kuçova was unlikely to turn into a NATO air base, where 5 projects will be implemented, divided into 3 important packages and where, in addition to the benefits in the strategic and military aspect, it will deliver long term impact on economy and the social aspect, also, the area of Kuçova will see unimaginable benefits in this case.
In the meantime, together with the United States government, through personal commitment – and I emphasize this because it is true, despite the fact that I am never happy whenever I have to mention the United States ambassador, because she has become a kind of a routine for everyone in this country to refer to the ambassador of the United States indiscriminately, but this is the truth – thanks to her personal commitment, in a constant mediation of our government, our Ministry of Defence and relevant overseas structures, we are talking about a project about creating a centre of cyber defence excellence, not only for Albania, but also as an added value for the whole of NATO.
Things that may sound completely unbelievable, as it was the case with the fact that we were going to host a NATO tactical base here, but that thanks to the right friendships, the right partnerships, being in the right position as NATO members, thanks to our strategic position and thanks to the will and passion to render Albania another dimension by taking advantage of not only the geographical position, as it is the case here, but also our very good position in NATO and the technology and innovation, we can deliver and make a reality what I just said.
I won’t be long and I would like to conclude by highlighting what the Chief of Staff rightly underlined as an element that, in my view, marks the beginning of a thread that connects all of these together, namely the NATO military exercise throughout this part of the world, Defender Europe 2021, for which we have received important reviews, but also from which we have learned important things to improve further.
We enjoy a favourable position to host this NATO-led drill in 2023 and our ambition is for this exercise to be a thread that connects every two years the general activity of our armed forces, in the framework of NATO.
I believe this element speaks volumes, but for us it is very important on both sides, because we still have a lot to gain from the future, in terms of development, in terms of strengthening our position, in terms of gaining weight and a specific importance within NATO, but on the other hand, it is extremely important as it provides us with the opportunity to learn from the best, although fully aware that we will never achieve them, because we will never become so developed and as qualitatively indisputable like the United States army, because there is no way it can happen, but being in such a good company in this regard, we can keep improving constantly and build an army which would always remain very modest in terms of numbers and in the overall context of NATO, but in terms of quality, I am convinced, it can become an excellent model and a meaningful example for other countries smaller or slightly larger than our country and can play its role, by, as I said, by taking advantage of technology, innovation and by enhancing its human capacities.
Fortunately, we are in a situation with every member agreeing on a common obligation to constantly boost defence spending. This for us means an extraordinary opportunity to qualitatively increase our human resources, continuously increasing financial incentive for them each year. This year we announced the highest pay rise ever for the Armed Forces, but our ambition is to increase their salaries every year until at some point in terms of the salary rate, our Armed Forces receive the average salary of NATO countries and this is entirely possible.
On the other hand, with the increasing funding we will have the opportunity to qualitatively enhance the logistics and qualitatively increase the technological capacities of our Armed Forces, to serve not only our Armed Forces, but also the entire society.
For all these reasons, today is a beautiful day, it is a very positive moment that I believe conveys immensely positive energies not only to our Armed Forces, not only to the collective of the NATO member states – and I would like to very cordially thank all the representatives of the NATO members attending this ceremony, ambassadors from other allied countries, just like I believe that the parliament members attending the ceremony here also deserve a special thank , starting with the Deputy Assembly Speaker, the chairman of the parliamentary committee on security.
Thank you very much everyone, all the respect for all those who enabled us this great appreciation, who helped us for this so important investment and who also enabled this whole process, which is all from A to Z is a process that goes through NATO standards and best practice.
Thank you very much!
