Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at the third joint meeting held in Kosovo between the government of Kosovo and the government of Albania:

Very honourable Prime Minister Isa Mustafa!

Dear ministers of Kosovo and Albania,

Fellow citizens and compatriots on both sides of our Highlands,

In Prizren, a city where Albanians affirmed united their right to exist half a century ago, our government started in 2014 a journey that has already created a new and extraordinary space of cooperation. In basing our policymaking on the reality of a land, of a people and of a common dream, together we have transformed the border from a huge gap separating us into a new bridge of cooperation that is strengthening every day. It is from this collaboration that the idea to create a common energy space between Albania and Kosovo originated.

We will be together in Tirana in a few weeks to inaugurate the interconnector line that will eventually connect the energy highway between Albania and Kosovo, in addition to opening a new stage for the development of this common space. But on the other hand, a strategic common priority is the connection of Kosovo with the TAP pipeline through the territory of Albania, which will put our space in the main streets of energy transition in Europe.

We have created in these two years a common agricultural market and unified standards and methods, in addition to adapting legislation on food control. Not only we finally succeeded to have our children, both in Albania and Kosovo, learn their mother tongue from the same primer, but we also unified the university system, our curricula, thus laying the foundation of a nationwide education.

On the other hand, we have encouraged a much more intense cooperation in the field of university research. The common cultural calendar of Albania and Kosovo is already a reality, where lovers of art and culture move freely, using the extraordinary potential of this joint space.

In these two years, we have materialized many other cooperation agreements on tourism, environment, or on the national security police. And today I am glad to look at the police of Kosovo with less envy, not because it is less good than it was when I used to say that we must take a leaf from Kosovo’s book, but because our police looks more like that of Kosovo’s. And I believe that in this direction we have been helped by the cooperation and the force of example of your excellent police.

Our relationship, which has been since long characterized by Albania’s absolute diplomatic support and by mutual visits on festive occasions, such as accolades or any sort of inauguration, has already entered a completely new historical phase of a strategic partnership in all directions.

Therefore, the third meeting of our governments today comes as a common work exercise to analyse what we have achieved and to program the following year. It is time to go further because we have done a lot, but there is still much more to do. To accelerate the already started process for breaking down all non-tariff barriers, unifying policies and strategies in all sectors, and for meeting our shared ambition to consolidate the foundations of a nation-wide space in the region.

The results of the work done so far are very encouraging indeed. Suffice it to note here that in the past year trade exchanges between our countries have reached for the first time the quota of 200 million Euros, a figure that is still far from what the figure of our interaction in the field of trade relations can be, but it has placed Kosovo for the first time as the second largest destination for exports. A direct result of our joint work to expand the space of commercial interaction.

The agreement to be signed today on the joint customs and taxation investigation, and that on the border partnerships, coordinate our efforts to formalize and integrate our economies. The further steps we are taking to create a customs point of Kosovo’s at the Port of Durres to harmonize excise duties, unify price references for transport, as well as to create the green corridor for export and import of seasonal agriculture products, will obviously give a new impetus to the economic cooperation between our two countries.

The establishment of the Training Centre for the Youth and the unification of reforms in innovation and administration will enable Albania and Kosovo to further enhance inter-institutional cooperation, by laying not only the foundations to create a modern administration with unified standards and procedures based on the example of EU countries, but to have also a necessary interaction at a human level among civil servants on this side of the Highlands and the other side.

The announcement of the lake of Fierza being a protected area of common interest, is the first step towards the development of a concrete cross-border tourist platform. Our goal is to extend this cooperation throughout the basin crossed by the river Drin. Meanwhile, we have given a strong impetus also to the Alps cross-border project in cooperation with the municipality of Gjakovë.

Our countries have already had for the first time a common strategy for the protection of the environment, by joining together to monitor the quality of air, water and soil, and to protect nature, manage protected areas and use sustainably our natural resources.

Albania and Kosovo have always been together, on their good and tough days. But today we are about to sign here in Pristina, for the first time, a platform that sanctions our cooperation in the event of natural disasters.

Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters!

NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly was held in Tirana a few days ago. Although the conflict in Ukraine, the refugee crisis and the faith crisis experienced by many European countries, were the main topics on the agenda, the need for the institutionalization of NATO’s relations with Kosovo was stressed not only by us, the representatives of Albania. The complex geopolitical context, the influences of third actors in the region, but also the realization of Kosovo’s legitimate aim to transform the Security Forces of Kosovo into the Armed Forces of Kosovo, impose a new relationship, qualitatively renewed, with the Alliance, and Albania is without discussion the most powerful advocate of Kosovo’s within the Alliance.

The combination of our forces is a necessity. We need to be aware every moment that we have to be together to encourage European partners to finally understand and accept as inevitable the need for integration of the Balkans as soon as possible, not as a personal need of ours, but as a European strategic project, not as a continuation of a bureaucratic integration process, but as a necessity for a safer Europe, with a fully integrated Balkans in it.

We have joined our voice to yours for many years against the great injustice of the isolation of Kosovo, as the last European country and also Europe’s newest state needing a visa to travel the continent. The news on the visa liberalization has relieved us all, but it has also relieved the EU from a great shame. Meanwhile, the recognition of Kosovo by UEFA and FIFA in April opened a completely new chapter not only for Kosovo, but also for the awareness of everyone else who still looks at Kosovo out the corner of their eyes.

Our dream of national unity through the EU, based on a policymaking according to reality and not to the emotions or needs to exploit poverty and the dissatisfaction of people, thus inciting primitive nationalism, is an everlasting inspiration of ours.

In the early 1900s Isa Boletini said that “true diplomacy relies on the middle path, which can be found only by those who know how to harmonize the rights and needs of their country within a comprehensive politics”. A century later, we can keep moving forward with these words, determined towards the EU, and describe at best the position of our diplomacy based on reasons, and of our path towards our common dream to be united in the flag of the EU.

Realities more than passions make Albania’s eyes turn to Kosovo with the unifying project of a people who is not fragmented anymore, and also of a region that is no longer fragmented but rather unified by shared synergies, by the comprehensive strategies on a territory cultivated by coexistence. The new era of relations between Albania and Serbia serves exactly this vital purpose for the region where we live, but also for right of the next generation across the region to live in peace, security and cooperation.

On the other hand, Albania supports unhesitatingly the enhancement of the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, as a means to deepen cooperation in the region, imposing on us all an increasingly close coordination between us. On the other hand we have encouraged and will encourage your leadership to go forward in this dialogue because it is a dialogue that perhaps more than any other thing elevates Kosovo in the eyes of all its partners and friends, the state-building knowledge of Kosovo and the vision of Kosovo, as a country of peace and harmony among everybody.

On the path of taking all the rights belonging to them, Albanians want balance and don’t want balances to be destroyed. But we will not cease to highlight that full rights of Albanians in Macedonia and the implementation to the letter of the Ohrid Agreement, are a necessity for Macedonia which we want to be strong, stable, and a part of all integration processes, both in the EU and NATO.

On the other hand, we will not cease to highlight that the rights of Albanians of the Presevo Valley must be respected at least as much as the rights of other minorities in Kosovo and Albania. Anyone who wants to know more on how to respect the rights of Albanians in the Presevo Valley, should take the example of how Kosovo respects the rights of Serbs in its territory.

Two days ago, on the occasion of the 80th birth anniversary of Bekim Fehmiu, one of the greatest artists that our region has ever known, the Prime Minister of Serbia and I joined in a shared telegram where each of us agreed on the fact that whichever life path we choose to be together, that path will be but one more asset for us, both Albanians and Serbs.

Until a short time ago, before we entered the historic Berlin Process, our two countries were not able to agree even on the text of a simple telegraph for a worldwide known actor. While today we are able to agree on much more.

The Berlin process is enabling the greatest reconciliation that Europe has known since the time when Germany and France left behind the bitter past to become the two founding locomotives of the European Union.

Under the Franco-German example, we believe that Albanians and Serbs can do the same for the Balkans, and provide a shining example for the whole of Europe today.

And on the other hand, we are convinced that the Berlin process, led in shared road, energy or cultural corridors, and which creates excellent conditions for building cooperation bridges on the rivers of hatred and blood of the past, is our great historical chance. A chance which we are determined to not miss because we cannot lose the right of the next generation to live in a region that is much stronger economically, much worthier politically, and much more admired culturally.

The creation of the common market of the Western Balkans, a vision expressed by Albania in this process, will encourage and inspire our countries to intensify cooperation between them, to be more open to investments, and to remove all trade barriers in the region, thus turning the region into a model of interaction, similar like drops of water to the interaction in the European Union space, although we are not yet members of the European Union, in addition to facilitating the movement of professionals and skilled workforce.

Dear friends,

We have managed to do more, and to make reality many things that two years ago might seem merely propaganda premises. However, I am convinced that we can do more and much better.

Our bitter and divided past, decades of lack of communication, the momentum to discover the world and the difficulties of transition to rebuilding our homes, have kept us apart often and for a long time. But that cannot happen anymore.

Even the first Summit of the Diaspora to be held in Tirana in November, and which we are organizing in collaboration with the government of Kosovo, will be another area that will enable us to communicate not only between us, but with all those who, living outside Albania and Kosovo as emigrants, have done for Albania and Kosovo what no one else could do except them.

Establishing bridges of knowledge and of communication of knowledge among Albanians throughout the world is a strategic investment which we will do more, better and all together for our common future.

In concluding my speech, I want to bring the words of a great scholar, Maximilian Lambertz who once had said: “The true history of mankind will be written only when Albanians participate in its writing.”

No one prevents us today, here in Pristina, to participate in the writing of the new history of the Balkans and of a Europe that is modern, democratic and equal for everyone, big or small, old members of the European family or the youngest among them, we must only unanimously decide what to write, and do our best that what we write reflects the reality that all together we can and will build.

Many thanks!