Prime Minister Edi Rama’s opening remarks at press conference after annual EU-Western Balkans Summit in Brussels:

 

Good afternoon! I stand before you together with the Minister of Finance to discuss two extremely important topics on the eve of the year-end.

First, yesterday’s European Union-Western Balkans Summit and, second, the normative act just adopted by the government. I am starting off with the first one and the Finance Minister will then inform you and the broad public opinion on the content of the government’s normative act.

A Summit to discuss the European perspective of our countries took place a day ago.

The progress made to date was highlighted, with discussions focusing on the Kosovo-Serbia normalization process, the need for full alignment of the Western Balkan countries with the European Union’s foreign policy and I am very pleased to share with you today the very fact that the EU member states assess Albania’s progress very positively and the European Commission in particular positively assess performance of our national team in the first phase of the accession negotiations, already successfully completed, namely the overall screening of Albania’s state and market functioning.

I plan to host a ceremony to thank and further motivate members of the negotiating group of around 1000 members, including the negotiators, rapporteurs and contributors, involving not only the executive institutions, but also independent bodies, a group that has conducted 777 presentations in Brussels in a 14 months’ time since the accession negotiations were launched and I avail myself of the opportunity to extend again my appreciation and gratitude for commitment, professionalism and discipline of the 36 integral teams of this big group who, as I said, have left an excellent impression.

In my speech on behalf of Albania yesterday, I wholeheartedly thanked the European Council President Charles Michel, the European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, Commissioner for Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi and, certainly, the whole team at the Brussels-based Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations and it was not just a formal appreciation, but a sincere and heartfelt gratitude to all the above mentioned names for five-year common work and for the fact that this was the last EU-Western Balkans Summit under the current European Council and European Commission leadership, because, as you already know, new European elections are set to take place next June  that will produce new leadership, new European Parliament, and European Commission.

We are sincerely grateful because the truth is that, like never before, the Western Balkans has been heard, we have earned respect that has become an integral part of the work of the Brussels leadership.

Further on, I have proudly informed the EU-Western Balkans Summit about the ground-breaking of AI-based approach which Albania will use to transpose the 3484 measures of the acquis in our national legislation, and this will also be part of our process strategy, also putting together the whole pile of documentation, 5 years faster than Croatia, which has gone down in history for a very serious and efficient performance in this process, which took Croatia seven years to complete, just as it would take us, maybe even more than 7 year, as it has been the case with other countries. This is the case if we followed the manual path by recruiting an army of translators, lawyers, legal assistants to ensure the translation and editing, the correction not only in linguistic terms but also in the legal language of tens and thousands of pages of legal measures that a country should adopt to get ready from a technical point of view for the European Union accession.

I also informed the Summit about another approach that has yet to be in place, but it is an approach which is intended to be completed within this term for an unprecedented minimization of human participation in Public Procurement processes, using Artificial Intelligence. The approach to transposition of the legal body of the EU in the legislation of the Republic of Albania has successfully passed the test and now we are in the process of screening and we will start the implementation at a speed that, thanks to Artificial Intelligence and digital technology, is exponential higher than the mainstream approach.

I also touched upon the EU-Albania strategic ties and partnership as a relationship based on a common “religion” of all Albanians, namely Europe, as an old legacy of those who forewarned and taught us to never forget that for Albanians, the sun rises where it sets, as a mission and as a historical obligation to the future generations and definitely also as an added power to work and to patiently handle every difficulty and to overcome every obstacle.

In the meantime, I definitely referred to the issue of bilateral issues exported to the EU summits and, for sake of truth, awareness has been raised among the most experienced and the longest-standing member states in the united European family precisely about the fact that bilateral issues brought to the European Council meetings by a member country cause unreasonable impediments, because bilateral issues must be resolved between two countries and, moreover, it is incomprehensible and unreasonable that a country on the path towards EU integration is blocked and hindered just because of the bilateral issues although that country has embarked on a final phase of European state-building process, benefiting know-how transfer from the EU.

And if a solution is not found to separate the bilateral issues from the EU negotiation process, the Balkans and the countries already involved in this process in our region, we can easily predict how many other problems they can bring up in the process, even more so when it comes to issues inherited from the past, to purely politically-motivated issues and not to issues that would affect any aspect related to the EU values ​​and principles.

I spoke briefly about the current differences between us and Greece, yet I emphasized that this is a bilateral issue that we should deal with bilaterally and that, in any case, it is an issue that as far as Albania is concerned, we don’t see it related to the negotiation process, nor to the content of our relationship with Greece, a strategic partner of Albania, a neighboring country with which we want to deepen cooperation and strengthen friendship by doing everything we can and we are seeking to become a European country in the Balkans instead of being a Balkan state in the European Union.

Albania should, can and through our common work and effort become the Balkans’ Europe. Albania has all it takes to become Europe in the Balkans; its transformation domestically is crucial for all of us. Albania’s transformation from an underdeveloped and chaotic country in the Balkans to a state functioning like an EU member state, is equally important, and perhaps more important than Albania’s EU membership itself.

Therefore these are inextricably linked and therefore this is our position. There has been an understandable misunderstanding as it has to do with the technical aspect of the process operation. It is not the European Council to make a decision on the issue, but the Council assigns the Conference of the EU ambassadors to proceed with the technical and formal aspects of the progress report on every country, also definitely based on the indicators of the European Council and every country represented by their own ambassadors.

So I stay optimistic that we will overcome this stalemate. However, I am also convinced that Albania will practically face no delays, even for a single day, let alone months and years long, no matter whether this impasse is resolved or not, because, in the meantime, we will keep doing our homework and deliver, and moreover we know possess an incredible tool, namely our innovative artificial intelligence approach about which I have informed all our friends in the European family. And we will be ready for the EU much faster than the EU will be ready for us.

I dwelled upon the issue of normalization of Kosovo-Serbia relations and, in the presence of the representative of the Republic of Serbia, with the same clarity I have bluntly stated that at the very same place, although under different circumstances, and at various meetings I have expressed my conviction that no sanctions should have been imposed on Serbia for not aligning with the EU about sanctions on Russia, because Serbia’s future is no elsewhere but under the roof of the united Europe. What happened in Banjska and the decision to declare a national day of mourning after the murder of the police officer, not only was it an event with no European values of whatsoever, but it has also shaken trust and called into question the long line of credit in political sense that the Union, together with other countries in the region, except Kosovo in this case, have granted Serbia to encourage it to eventually take the right side of the region’s history and to keep as far away as possible the spreading fire of the conflict that has already erupted in Ukraine. Therefore, it is time for Serbia to face itself and totally commit to the region’s European future and constructively respond to Kosovo’s positive change and approach to the EU-facilitated normalization dialogue.

In the meantime, I also urged the participating top state representative of Kosovo and the country’s Prime Minister in his absence, as well as the President of Serbia in his absolute absence, with the same blunt language, that there is no reason for Kosovo, on the contrary it just loses the interest of its great friends and allies at the dialogue table, by behaving the way it has been doing for a certain time previously, which is a loss not only for Kosovo, but for the entire region that needs it like it needs light, air and water for life to finally emerge from the painful and degrading area of ​​history. I have underlined that it is now time for Kosovo to move further on and build its approach on the very foundation it has already laid with the positive step it took by accepting, after having wasted a long time, to establish the Association of the Serb-dominated Municipalities and, by doing, paving the way towards restoration of the badly damaged trust of the friends and allies, but, above all, restoration of all the benefits to the future of Kosovo and the whole region under a potential final agreement with Serbia.

And together with the President of the Republic of Kosovo, I availed myself of the opportunity to call on the European Council to immediately lift all the punitive measures or the sanctions levied on Kosovo for known and understandable reasons back then and, by doing so, in exchange encourage Kosovo to positively change its course and approach to the EU-facilitated dialogue.

In the meantime, I welcomed and praised the new growth plan already unveiled and from which Albania will see significant benefits in the form of direct financial support and as well as support, on the other hand, for the country’s economy and I have called for larger support because it is obviously insufficient. The countries in our region can’t stand between the everything awarded to a EU member state and a very modest something provided to a non-EU member, but more support should be provided to them, new paths should be opened up for them to integrate in the meantime into the common European market so that they can build other financial means and an intermediate status, because between the status of a country negotiating its EU membership and the status of a full-fledged member state, there is a way for an intermediate status that would allow for full presence of our countries in the EU establishment in Brussels.

These were the key points that were somehow part of the discussion frame at the European Council meeting a day ago, where, I reiterate, Albania enjoys a position like never before, as primus inter pares, it is respected, highly evaluated and with its voice heard just like any other country and, above all, with the full dignity of a country that does not accept to be treated any differently than anyone else.