Montenegro was the next stop in the Prime Minister Edi Rama’s two-day tour of the Western Balkan countries ahead of the upcoming Berlin Process Summit scheduled to take place in Tirana in October this year. The Premier held a tête-à-tête meeting with his Montenegrin counterpart Dritan Abazović in Podgorica. After the meeting with the Prime Minister Abazović, the Albanian government head is scheduled to meet with the President of the Republic of Montenegro, Mr. Jakov Milatović.

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Prime Minister of Montenegro, Dritan Abazović: Good afternoon everyone!

Thank you very much for coming to this press conference. Our precious friend, Prime Minister Edi Rama today is visiting Montenegro as part of his regional tour.

We had a significantly long tête-à-tête meeting and then an extended meeting of both delegations. The goal is that we all invest effort in a bid to de-escalate the overall situation in the region.

Montenegro’s position is pretty clear: we are only interested in cooperation, in stronger cooperation and we want this to be a path that our neighbors would embark on too, and we want to provide our contribution to deliver on this.

The goal is for the region to focus on the future and not on the past. I think we are all fed up with topics from the past. Certainly, there are still open issues, but we want them closed as soon as possible and a final epilogue to begin. The region should focus on our common European Union path.

We shared opinions on several issues we plan to discuss and implement in an upcoming meeting due in Tirana and a meeting as part of the Berlin Process that will also be in Tirana in October regarding joint projects following the joint session of our two governments held here in Podgorica.

I think this is a way to confirm our neighborly relations. A good atmosphere prevails in our relations, also with our teams and our colleagues. I think that the initiative of the prime minister of Albania regarding Montenegro and our government always enjoys our support. We do not support any kind of aggression. Everything should be an outcome of dialogue, understanding and it means that two or more parties should sit and talk with one another, no matter how much energy it would take, and ultimately find a lasting solution. We absolutely support that and this is the context we see Mr. Rama’s visit to other countries in the region.

He will hold some his meetings tonight and I think that when it comes to Montenegro, I can openly say he is always welcome, and not only him, but every prime minister from the region, from Europe or from any region around the world, who come to deliver the message that together and in a constructive way we resolve issues peacefully and in a democratic way.

Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama: As always, it was a special pleasure, and this is not because this is what diplomacy requires, but because it is really a pleasure anytime I meet with Prime Minister Abazović, my ever closer friend Dritan, because he is one of the very few who, in this neighborhood of ours in the heart of Europe called the Balkans, see politics as a citizen and not as a representative of an ethnic group, and this is so rare and so precious in our region. We discussed the topics that are the reason for my two-day trip to all the capitals in the region; namely the Berlin Process, and the upcoming NATO summit.

The upcoming NATO summit, where Albania and Montenegro sit together as the Alliance members, and it has been a historic day for us in Albanian and for the Albanian state, when Montenegro become a NATO member, something for which Albania has been a staunch advocate since the beginning, when many said that Montenegro could not and would never join NATO, because it was under the influence of other actors.

History showed that Montenegro joined NATO and that Montenegro is a valuable member of the Alliance and for us it is very important that at the NATO summit we share a common position regarding the region, being aware that thanks to the Berlin Process and thanks to all the other initiatives we have launched, we have ushered in another stage of our history and the future generations would never pardon us for failing to make all the efforts and allowing the region to go back to where it languished for centuries until just a few years ago, namely the conflicts that have caused massive bloodshed and deep lines of hatred between countries in the region.

I informed the Prime Minister and his team about the process we are trying to align with an already ongoing effort by the European Commission for a new funding and economic support plan for the region and the Berlin Process, where I would like to make use of the Tirana Summit as a gathering of our countries with a unified position regarding the plan in a bid to secure full support of the Chancellor and Germany in this process.

I also informed him about the preparations we are making to host an informal meeting, an informal working lunch in Tirana on July 17, together with European Commission representatives to discuss the plan.

We are not only politically aligned, but we also share a common approach. Anything that provokes strife and fuels conflict in our region, no matter where it comes from, poses a problem for us and we are in no way ready and willing to be part of it, but, on the contrary, we are ready to join forces and counter a troubling and a conflicting situation.

We want peace to work for everyone, to work for the people and we want people to be provided more chances, more opportunities, more job and investment opportunities, more income and no longer fairy tales and stories of heroism. Heroism is a thing of the past. We don’t need new heroes in our region. We need new models that would inspire everyone how to be more innovative, how to be more creative, how to become more efficient, how to make our economies stronger, how to promote development, how to enhance peoples’ capabilities to cope with an ever more difficult and more complex world.

Thank you!