Joint press conference of Prime Minister Edi Rama, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin:
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz: Ladies and gentlemen,
As I have already underscored in my speech on Europe in Prague by the end of August, the six Western Balkan states are lie with the European Union, they belong to the European Union and they are part of the European family. And this is why I have always strongly come up in favour of the enlargement of the European Union to include the Western Balkan countries. The so-called Berlin Process is very important for the success of the EU enlargement and I am delighted therefore to be able to welcome today the representatives of the participating states and the institutions to the Berlin Process. And I was particularly gratified to see all the prime ministers of the Western Balkan states coming to Berlin. The Berlin Process takes place ever since 2014 now for the third time under the auspices of Germany that has hosted the Process. I am also glad we were able to convince Albania with the Prime Minister Edi Rama, who will host the next meeting, and that he and the European Commission President Urusla von der Leyen, who is also present here to joint present the success and the outcomes of this high-level meeting.
The development of the Western Balkans and their integration into the European Union is central preoccupation for me. The region’s accession to the EU is in our interest and it is all the more important against the backdrop of the brutal Russian aggression on Ukraine. To this end, reforms are necessary in the EU itself, but primarily in the region, particularly with regards to the rule of law and the environmental standards.
It is therefore necessary to move regional cooperation forward and settle the long-time conflicts among the six countries. The improver regional cooperation among the Western Balkan countries is key to speeding up the EU rapprochement. Since 2014, the Berlin Process has had a very important contribution to this aspect. Since then, the Process has promoted links in the region at all levels, the new roads infrastructure, interconnectivity and new power interconnection lines, but also has brought people closer together. In doing so, it has strengthened the economy and has also given a concrete contribution towards improving good neighbourly relations and reconciliation in the region.
In very concrete terms, today we discussed creation of a common regional market, which would be compatible with the EU rules, and which also integrates all the countries in the region. I would like to congratulate all the Western Balkan countries that through mediation of the Regional Cooperation Council and the German Federal Government three mobility agreements could be signed today. This is a great success for all the citizens in the region and it shows that the Western Balkans six are really serious in their effort to take the regional cooperation and the EU integration process forward, because this European project has been always about moving forward together.
With these three agreements that were signed now, the citizens of the region will be able to travel and cross the borders with just their ID cards. The countries also commit to mutually recognize their university diplomas and the professional qualifications and this, in very concrete terms, will improve the lives of the individuals in the region and will get the region closer together.
And, on energy, an important agreement, an important declaration has also been signed among the Western Balkan countries. These countries agree under this declaration to work more closely together in the energy security area and also on climate protection measures in order to achieve the 2030 targets. We and other participants in the Berlin Process will continue to support the Western Balkan states in the medium and short-term and long-term obviously and also help them cope with the energy crisis and focus on the renewable energy.
Germany will focus on its assistance through the work of its promotional bank KfW development bank by granting in short term loans of up to EUR 200 million and in order to whether this acute crisis in the medium-term by 2030 through supporting the energy transition for the Western Balkans to the tune of EUR 1 billion. In all of these issues we need to work together more closely.
The Summit has shown that there is willingness to cooperate and Germany is going to support this Process in the future and will also obviously be willing to host this Process again in the future.
EC President Ursula von der Leyen: Indeed, we had a very good meeting today. And with Albania in the driving seat for next year, I know that the Berlin Process continues to be in very good hands. Our aim is very clear: It is the aim to bring our Western Balkan partners as close as possible, as fast as possible.
And here we have two tracks: One track of work is of course the accession process. There, we have made good progress. The Commission has put enlargement back on the table, from the very first day of my mandate. We have been securing agreement on a new enlargement methodology that opened up ways, not only to unblock decisions – that was very important – but it also brought back credibility to the whole process.
Then, we have put on the table a substantive Economic and Investment Plan. It brings EUR 30 billion of investment to the region, which is overall approximately one-third of the GDP of the whole region.
In addition, last year, we had the first Intergovernmental Conference with Montenegro. We opened one cluster with Serbia. And this year, we were very happy that we finally managed to have the first Intergovernmental Conference with Albania and North Macedonia and started the screening process. And we made the proposal to Council to give Bosnia and Herzegovina candidate status.
I must say, this progress, which is good progress, dear Edi Rama, was possible because of the progress made in the Western Balkan countries themselves, so it is your success.
Indeed, a second track of action is the Berlin Process. And here, the goal is to deepen our economic integration. And yes, we are facing manifold challenges, first and foremost Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that marks a geopolitical shift on our continent.
But the longer the Russian war lasts, the more determined we are to stand together and to withstand.
We know that our investments in the Western Balkans are not only important for a conducive business environment – this is also the case – but we also know that these investments are investments for peace, stability and prosperity of Europe as a whole.
Against this backdrop, indeed, we discussed in depth the knock-on effects of the Russian war on energy. Therefore, today’s declaration on energy security and the green agenda for the Western Balkans marks a very important step.
As the Chancellor already said, we are united in the goal of climate neutrality by 2050 and our climate targets by 2030. If we look at the immediate crisis, it is important that we synchronise our steps. We are in an energy community. Therefore, in the short term, this means for all of us: diversification of energy sources, the reduction of our dependency on Russian fossil fuels, and to keep energy prices in check with joint action.
But we are also aware of the fact that unprecedented crises demand or need unprecedented steps and action. Therefore, I am pleased to announce that the Commission will put forward a substantial energy support package for the Western Balkans. It is EUR 1 billion in grants and it has two different parts. The first part is EUR 500 million in grants as a very immediate financial support for the six Western Balkan countries to put them in a position for the very short term to support vulnerable households and vulnerable businesses.
This budget support will be adopted in December and available in January – in other ways: very shortly.
The second part, the other EUR 500 million in grants, will be dedicated to investments in energy infrastructure. These are mainly investments in gas and electricity interconnectors to really have a common grid and interconnection in the region with the European Union. Very important is the emphasis on investments in renewable energy – because this gives us independence, it is clean energy and it creates good jobs at home – and, of course, energy efficiency measures.
In addition, we will strengthen the security of supply by improving and facilitating the access in each other’s energy pipelines and storages. This is for the emergency.
So that in case somebody is in trouble, there is solidarity from all of us. And the European Union and the Western Balkans will harmonise their crisis and emergency plans and measures, in a spirit of solidarity and increased neutral resilience.
Finally, we are also inviting our partners from the Western Balkans to join us in our European attempt to have a joint procurement platform, so really to develop the strong market power we have if we stick together.
And this brings me to the second point, the regional integration. That is the development of the common regional market. It is for us a very important stepping stone towards the EU Single Market. Indeed, in this regard, I welcome today’s signature of three very important agreements. The freedom of movement is key to both. It is of course key to the development of the common regional market, but it is also key to the integration of the Western Balkans in the European Single Market. It is about the people – be it students, be it professionals. They will bring the region forward. Therefore, the agreement is so important for 18 million people to move freely within the region. Professionals can tap their full potential, regardless of where they work. The professional qualifications – be it of skilled workers, students, researchers, medical doctors, dentists or architects – will all be recognised throughout the Western Balkans.
Very important is also that the national ID cards will be accepted at every border. These measures will not only boost intra-regional travel in the Western Balkans, but it will also strengthen personal and cultural bonds between the people of the region.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Thank you very much. I must say that everyone from the region was very pleased to be here today in Berlin, eight years after the Berlin Process was launched in this very same building. I must also say that Angela Merkel was proven right, because if today we have a united region at a very complicated moment of history for whole Europe and for the whole Euro-Atlantic community, the public secret is the Berlin Process.
When we gathered here for the first time, we hadn’t met each other for centuries, but this is very much what we all like to do now. I would like to really wholeheartedly thank Chancellor Scholz for his engagement, his great hospitality, for the outstanding German bread and of course, last but not least, for trusting Albania and me to host the next Berlin Process summit in our wonderful country.
I very much hope that what we discussed today – and carefully taken in the notes of the Chancellery – will see progress in the next Summit in Tirana, starting with the energy crisis, where we feel we haven’t been left aside, we are not alone, because it was just a few days ago that the EC President Ursula von der Leyen toured the Western Balkans and she didn’t just bring nice words of solidarity, but also a very important financial support, important to start with and not to end with. At the same time, we are looking forward to seeing progress in the interconnectivity area. As the Chancellor pointed out clearly, it is not about connecting our own infrastructure and highways in our countries, but it is about connecting the region and Europe and vice-versa. We hope to see progress in the digital sphere, because these were the three main pillars of the Berlin Process since the day one; energy, interconnectivity and digital solutions. But we are also facing today the cyber security challenges, a topic we certainly discussed today. And of course, we wish to see things moving in the right direction for our young people.
We have again raised the issue about moving faster and integrating into the European higher education system, as well as on how we can increase presence of Germany and other EU developed countries through their private sector and not just through public funding.
Concluding my short introduction, I would like to say it is very important what we signed today. I can’t help but underline that these agreements were three agreements that we were looking forward since two or three years ago, when they were blocked. The Chancellor and his team worked really hard together with our people to convince everyone to sign them and it is great news that we today had three important signatures, which we already had in the Open Balkan framework.
So, it is very important that everyone is now included in this framework of the three agreements. Of course, it sounds a bit weird or somehow alienating for the people of Kosova that while they made another step by signing this agreement on free movement with ID cards only, but they can’t yet move freely, as everyone else in the region, when it comes to travelling to the EU member states. And I very much hope this will be solved sooner rather than later. So, I am looking forward to host everyone next year in Tirana and I am very happy that we will welcome and host the Chancellor and others next month in Tirana again. We were laughing earlier as everyone was talking about becoming a hub of energy, but apparently Tirana is becoming a hub of summits.
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-It is a question I would like to ask both the Chancellor and the Prime Minister. An agreement was signed today on the freedom of movement, as well as on the professional qualifications. Albanian doctors in particular see their future in Germany. Prime Minister Rama you have quite demanded from the EU member states that they give back on this whole investment, because these are after all investments that were taken into the future qualification of a group of individuals from the Albanian taxpayers. So we would like to get something back. Is there a possibility, a mechanism on how to do this? And the spokesperson of the British government reacted to your yesterday’s statements. How do you see this?
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz: As for the free movement of labour is one of the advantages of the European Union. So, all the countries aspiring to join the EU are willing to accept this concept of the free movement of more than 400 million people now and a workforce of 220 million. So, it is not just about the movement of people to some certain countries, but if you go into details you would see that it is very easy for young people and the others too just to take the decision to work for some years in another country and returning then back home. This is something that enriches their experiences and definitely enriches the advantages of many, many people. So I am very sure that the free movement of labour is a very good concept for all of us. Yes, you are right saying that the brain drain is a problem for countries, considering also various aspects. Of course, this also applies for the countries that are already members of the European Union, but if you look to this phenomenon closely you would see many of them going back later in their lives and this way their countries of origin benefit from their experience they have amassed while working and living abroad. And indeed, if you look at Germany you would find out that there many Germans working all over Europe for 5, 10 or 15 years, sometimes returning back home, sometimes not. This is in a way something that works for all.
The other question is what we can do so that people like to stay in their own country and the only answer to this question is: hope. If we make things very good and develop our countries by creating better economic atmosphere, making feasible good jobs and good future is possible in all the member states of the EU and the countries that are willing to join the EU, I think this is the best answer to this problem.
EC President Ursula von der Leyen: If you look over time the free movement of labour, and the Chancellor already noted how beneficial this is for all sides, you would see we have had this process of partial brain-drain in any country that was in the accession process. The closer you come to the accession, less stronger this effect becomes. The solution is raising the living standards and this is our common goal. However, given that this also takes time and this is of course for the families in the Western Balkan countries that want to keep their young people close to them and this is a difficult question if you see the time dimension. There are quite good examples, where you have cross-border agreements, for instance, on doctors, to have an exchange for few years and then come back and deliver on the experience they gain. And there are many very good examples of that and this is something we can learn on and, as you Prime Minister raised the question of the universities and their cooperation, and of course this cooperation would imply also the medicine faculties, this might be a topic we can elaborate on in-depth, also under the Erasmus programme, the students exchange within the Western Balkans and the European Union. We have started to work on that, but it could be a very interesting point for the next Western Balkan summit to cope up with proposals and solutions to such a very important question.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Germany faced the same or a similar problem some years ago, when citizens from Albania and other countries in the region joined somehow the big wave of refugee crisis to this country, but I never heard any German politician, let alone any government minister, talking about an invasion. I never heard any German politician, let alone a government minister or the Interior Minister talk about Albanians being criminals and bringing more criminals, but I saw a government that was very interested to address the issue with dignity and respect for the Albanian people and to move forward concretely by first including Albania on the list of countries of safe origin, tightening up the system of applications and practically ending that somehow turbulent moment in the most decent and respectful way. So, instead of fuelling the crazy narrative of invaders and gangsters to cover up for totally failed policies on borders control and combating the crime, the British representatives need to come to Germany and learn quickly and fix their own problems. We in Albania are not there to fix the problems they face in Britain and, secondly, I have to remind everyone of the fact that our citizens are totally legal until they arrive in France. So, if there is a problem in the Channel between France and Great Britain, they have to work with each other and find a way to solve it. I know Brexit has made it more difficult, but this was a decision made by the British people and not by the Albanian or the French people. And at the end, we are very happy to cooperate, to do whatever we can on our side, but we will never ever accept this kind of rhetoric.
Albanians in Great Britain form a great and fully integrated community. Around 70% of them, and they are not millions of them, but just 140,000 – and for 140,000 persons from another community, Germany wouldn’t even count them at all – yet 70% of them have left from Greece and Italy, and not from Albania. There are 1200 Albanian business owners, there are many respected Albanian academics and so on and so further and when it comes to criminals, their number in the British jails is less than one percent. So, singling out a community and talking about alleged gangsters and criminals doesn’t really sound something that is very British. It sounds more like a scream from a madhouse.
-A question addressed to the Chancellor Scholz. You said that the conflicts in the Western Balkan region are supposed to be settled and they need to be settled also if we look at the crossroads at this watershed moment that we experience right now. Germany and France have tabled a proposal to solve the Kosovo question and the normalization of the relations between Kosovo and Serbia. My question is, how urgent is an agreement in your view between Kosovo and Serbia and when do you expect this to happen. And a question for three of you, during the civil society forum yesterday, the wish also to have a timetable on the EU enlargement was expressed. How realistic and how desirable is this?
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz: Thank you for the question. It is true that the bilateral conflicts that undoubtedly exist between some Western Balkan states need to be settled, they need to be overcome. So it is a good thing for us to be able to do this. Earlier this year we already made enormous progress regarding the debated between Bulgaria and North Macedonia. The EC President already spoke about a successful meeting. The processes have been already launched with Albania and North Macedonia looking ahead for a potential EU accession.
As to Serbia and Kosovo, this also applies to them. An agreement must be reached. We, the French government and also the European Commission, are trying our utmost to make this possible. We are very actively involved in talks with both parties and we hope that very soon will come to a process with both governments moving forward and an understanding can be reached. This is something about which we need to show patience and obviously we need to put a lot of effort to it. We hope that we will see a positive outcome very soon.
As far as EU enlargement is concerned, I think the best thing would be for the European Commission President to address that, I would say, as fast as possible. After all the Thessaloniki decisions date back to 19 years ago and at that time nobody had expected that it would take so long, so we need to speed up matters.
EC President Ursula von der Leyen: As for the timetable, I would say that the EU accession is a merit-based process. So there is no rigid timetable and that’s good. The better a country performs in its own interest, with investments and reforms, the faster the EU accession process goes. But we also have of course the other way round, that with non-implementation of the reforms or failure to deliver on reforms leads to a slowdown of the process. The modernized methodology has a purpose to speed up the process if there is willingness to really work hard for example on the general questions of the rule of law, and the principal values of the European Union. So it gives the opportunity, compared to previously, to really speed up the process and for the time being I must say we feel a wind of change going through Europe, because of the geopolitical situation and it is of utmost importance to push forward the accession process of the Western Balkans. Here we share the same attitude as we want our friends to be in the European Union.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: First of all, I must say that the new German-French plan offered to Serbia and Kosovo is really a great opportunity, not just for Serbia and Kosovo, but also for the region and Europe. I very much hope that both sides will take it very seriously and both sides will understand that time is high also to see it as an important contribution to the whole European security architecture.
On the other hand, when it comes to EU enlargement, I am the worst person to be asked in general, but in this case I would like to say that independently how the enlargement will go, we are now in a completely different level of cooperation with the European Union and this today is one of the examples. There are other regional initiatives that are equally important and there is also the continued path of the joint summits between the Western Balkans and the European Union. There is now the new European Political Community, a space of dialogue, cooperation, mutual understanding and efforts. This space has been increased and enlarged a lot.
Of course we need to do our own homework to access the European Union. This will not change and this shouldn’t change, because the work needed to become a full-fledged member is first of all a work that improves our own performance and makes our states functioning democracies at their best. So, we don’t need discount and we are not going to ask for a discount.
Finally, I would like to say that the Berlin Process has proven itself to be so good and so efficient when it comes to the political understanding and when it comes to strengthening this sense of belonging to the same space, be it either named European Union or just Europe. Now it is time to push, to make it more consistent, more concrete, and also try and give common answers to questions like the brain drain, to questions like better wages or questions like better quality of life and so on and so further, because Germany and other big and rich European countries will continue to be attractive for our people as they are attractive to people from other countries too.
We can’t change that by telling them to come back. We have to run and make as much progress as possible with their help. It is my feeling that there is really a very strong will to help and therefore we can’t ask for more. So, thank you very much Chancellor, thank you very much Ursula.
And let me finish that during the signing ceremony, we were four Albanians, two Germans and some others. Now, there are two Germans and one Albanian. So, Albanians should really understand that we have never ever been better than today. Of course it would be much better in the future.
Thank you!
