Press statement by the Minister of State for Relations with Parliament, and government Spokesperson Elisa Spiropali:
The Second Diaspora Summit, which coincided with the 575th anniversary of Lezha Assembly, brought together in Tirana more than 1 200 distinguished Albanian Diaspora personalities, as well as a range of renowned international experts in various domains, including economy, education, politics and culture. In addition to being an excellent platform to meet and come together in the face of common challenges, this Summit yielded a number of concrete outcomes that we would like to share with you.
First, a very important step forward has been taken regarding the migrant voting rights as a major commitment of this governing majority, the first and only one that has pledged to allow our compatriots around the world to cast their vote. A series of concrete steps were launched during the Summit’s proceedings to materialize the distance voting in Albania and Macedonia, which will provide for Diaspora’s active involvement in the country’s public life.
The Summit also put emphasis on the necessity for concrete implementation of the right to vote in Kosovo in line with the legal provisions recognizing the voting rights, which has not been yet implemented for various reasons. We are pleased that after several years of work, Albania is today much closer to establishment of this right. Since last July, Minister Majko has forwarded to Parliament a detailed document, containing the relevant suggestions on the steps to be taken to allow migrants cast their vote.
Unfortunately, the opposition’s parliamentary boycott has made a debate on this topic of national importance impossible, so we avail ourselves of this opportunity to call on opposition to consider this issue seriously, by including it in the upcoming electoral reform talks. The new opposition’s cooperation in the Assembly will be imperative also to adopt amendments to the law on local government, a legislation that requires a reinvigorated majority of 3/5 of votes to allow for creation of an office at every administrative unit specifically dedicated to the Diaspora.
Another major step forward has been taken towards the new economic model, which projects a new and very active role of Diaspora by replacing the model of remittances that finances a significant share of the consumption of the migrants’ families back home, whereas a small portion is injected in genuine and important investments for the country’s development. The remittances sent home by Albanian migrants over the past three decades estimated at around $30 billion, much higher than the value of foreign investments during this period and should we have had a vision to channel whole this amount to the mainstream economy, the situation would have been completely different by now in terms of welfare and employment in the country.
The Diaspora will have a key role to play in the new manufacturing, tourism and export-driven economic development model, becoming a genuine investor returning to Albania, not only because of the relatives back home, but, above all, because of the real opportunities to prosper and create new jobs.
With representatives of the Albanian business community operating in Germany, we discussed the latest initiative launched by Albanian business in the region and the governments of Albania and Kosovo to establish the Diaspora Business Chamber. This is a previously proven model that has yielded excellent results wherever it has been applied. The Tirana-based Diaspora Business Chamber will represent all Albanian, Kosovo and Macedonian diaspora businesses wherever they are.
Another major project has been launched to establish the Diaspora Bank, designed to absorb and inject diaspora capital into economy. In this context, we also agreed on the concrete ways of channelling Diaspora investments in tourism and agritourism, a sector with a tremendous development potential directly subsidized by the government.
For the first time, we have appointed a State Coordinator to negotiate pension rights agreements. The coordinator will be tasked with pushing ahead with the negotiations initiated with all countries that have not signed an agreement on recognition of pension rights with Albania yet.
For the first time ever, we have also named a National Coordinator for the joint calendar of events to promote the country’s image, natural beauties, historical values, culture, language, or traditions around the world. The program of events kicked off in Milan in early February with a fair showcasing Albania’s culinary and handicrafts and such events are scheduled to be held in main European centres and in destinations as far as Tel Aviv, Dubai, or Tokyo.
Another novelty is also the creation of the network of professionals, who contribute and fully operate in Europe, including the network of lawyers in Italy that was represented by 15 lawyers in the Second Diaspora Summit, the network of doctors in Germany, network of Albanian language teachers in Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Great Britain etc. These networks operate throughout the year.
A new prestigious project on the Diaspora Museum was launched during the Gala Dinner. Prior to materialization of the project, the first pavilion dedicated to diaspora has been opened at the National History Museum. A concrete platform has been created under the motto “Write your name too”, an initiative designed to promote philanthropy and donations.
In the field of education and culture, thanks to the new era of cooperation as part of our government’s annual meetings with the Kosovo government, important steps have been taken forward, including joint curricula, creation of a common database for teachers and Albanian language students in the world, or hosting joint workshops for diaspora teachers. Part of our commitment to increase the state budget on education each year is also the budget increase to provide funding for textbooks and didactic tools, as well as increasing funding for schools or Albanian cultural centres around the world in order to make sure that Albanian children be in touch with the Albanian language as a way to preserve national identity.
For the first time, under this government’s leadership, Albania has now a National Strategy on Diaspora that is closely coordinated with Kosovo, which is part of our vision on rapprochement and Albanians unification, not only economically but also culturally, in education, politics and a broader range of areas. However, during the Summit, we agreed to bring new updates by July in order to make this strategy more efficient and inclusive, keeping in mind the very valuable recommendations of our diaspora.
We here in Albania keep talking about country’s integration on daily basis, yet we forget that half of our compatriots have been already well integrated into the European Union member states or other developed countries around the world, demonstrating their extraordinary success stories.
The purpose of this Summit, as well as the goal of our policies over these years is to bring together all these energies so that our country moves forward swiftly and firmly on its path to development, integration and emancipation.
