Prime Minister Rama in Parliament – Interpellation session required by lawmaker Tritan Shehu:
Mr. Shehu, I would like to thank you for providing me this opportunity, as I believe it is never sufficient to discuss issues of common national and public interest and, moreover, all the political forces are obliged to do more and listen to one another.
The Open Balkan initiative is neither a substitute, nor alteration or a transformation of the Berlin process into something else, or a substitute for Albania’s European Union integration itself.
The Open Balkan initiative is a mechanism to deliver on the Berlin Process and the speed up the EU integration process, as it practically addresses the need for the benchmarks of the Berlin Process, currently on paper only, to be transformed into the kilometres of the path we together have embarked on towards delivering on this process’ vision, as well as to address the direct needs of the citizens, manufacturers and exporters of this country.
Do you Mr. Shehu and anyone else participating in this debate know the number of Albanian exporters to North Macedonia and Serbia? Concretely, Albania has 371 exporters to North Macedonia and 165 exporters to Serbia. Since Serbia is the essence of this debate, I would provide one more data that might help to elaborate the idea and illustrate the need for this mechanism. Fifty seven out of 165 Albanian exporters to Serbia export fruits and vegetables and they have been operating for several years now, regardless of what we discuss or not and regardless of the political panorama, based on which hasty and sometimes wrong hypotheses are often developed just to object further regional cooperation expansion.
The Berlin Process’ idea and vision, I believe, is clear to everyone, whereas as far as the Open Balkan mechanism is concerned, I would like to inform you that we, Albania, are the first ones to begin with the framework agreements to materialize the Berlin process, and two agreements on one stop shop have been signed with Kosovo and Montenegro under the Berlin Process or one stop shop border management with North Macedonia, and in the meantime we are ready as stipulated by the bilateral agreement already signed at Tirana Regional Summit.
The fact is that we live in a geographical region that we couldn’t choose and we need to do utmost efforts to promote spur production, exports and interactions in this geographical space.
However, these incentives are about a fragmented market, forcing the regions in the country to isolate themselves in closed spaces over the years, failing to support production growth, direct investment increase as would be the case with a space of common interactions.
Data from the Transport Community and the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) show that trucks spend 28 million hours waiting at borders of this region every year due to the multiple administrative and bureaucratic barriers, as well as due to the lack of a common regulatory framework among the countries in the region.
What is this regulatory framework among the countries in the region, whose absence, according to the international institutions, the waiting hours at the border alone costs 1% of the region’s GDP. This regulatory framework is neither more nor less than the common regulatory framework of the European Union, a framework based on the four EU freedoms, namely the freedom of movement of people, goods, capital and services. So, the regulatory framework is neutral to all the reasons of political irrationality of a country or another.
Taking notice that you cited the Foreign Minister of Montenegro, I would provide an example. According to data from our own exporting companies, the veterinary check cost alone is estimated at 80 euros, plus 20 euros charged by the customs agencies. This means that everyone has to pay 100 euros every time they cross the border. This is without taking into account the cost of long waiting hours at the border. Having said that, I would like to add that the Open Balkan mechanism and all these agreements we are making and starting to implement – some of which will be signed here in Tirana after few weeks, ahead of the year-end holidays, will lead to an increase in the number of Albanian exporters to around 500, and exponential growth if considering the difficulties they encounter today. I would suggest that you contact and ask the Albanian companies involved in producing and manufacturing activities in the territory of our country and, as I said, 57 of them are fruit and vegetable exporters, and we all know that fruits and vegetables are vulnerable when it comes to the time it takes to transport them.
You are asking why I think that such an initiative launched by Vucic could turn out to be useful in our regional cooperation process, with EU integration lying at the very heart of the process.
First of all, I have said it earlier – and you can refer to the archival records to verify my words – this is an issue that has been raised at the Berlin Process summit in Paris in 2015, if I am not wrong, where I and the President of Serbia separately focused on the danger facing the Berlin Process if the adopted documents were to remain on papers only. And that was the case indeed.
In the meantime, I will cite a part of the last European Commission Report on Albania, namely the political criteria focusing on Albania’s relations with the neighbouring countries, clearly noting that in terms of the commitments to the regional common market, to which you and Open Balkan rejecters refer, Albania has played a proactive role and in the meantime Albania is one of the six countries in region that has respected and has taken forward all the pending agreements on the common regional market.
Why are the agreements on the common regional market suspended? This is a question to which the Open Balkans initiative provides a concrete answer and response, because it is impossible for our allies to do the job we should individually do in our states and for our own interests in this region. They are our allies, they are our partners and precious friends, but they have a lot of things to do in their own countries and they can’t take over management of our countries or our region. What actually happens, if you are to look at the schedule of the summits as part of the Berlin Process – and I can’t exactly recall how many of them have taken place since 2014 – you would see a huge void, because the region has yet to deliver on what has been discussed and decided at the summits.
The very same report, since you referred to CEFTA, underlines that Albania successfully chaired CEFTA in 2019, during which, among others, the sixth additional protocol was signed to further ease free movement of the services in CEFTA member countries. This was precisely the case under Albania’s chairmanship, when the member countries also agreed and the validity procedures on mutual recognition of the authorized economic operators. Albania on its part ratified the sixth protocol in April 2020. Today, two years after the protocol endorsement, the protocol has yet to be ratified by most parliaments in the Western Balkan countries. What is then Albania supposed to do and which is the answer we should provide and actions we should make to tackle the problems of those interacting in the region as Albanian companies, to tackle their needs, as well as the country’s needs to boost capacities, expand markets, expand the space so that our manufacturers and tradesmen can interact and certainly increase their income and therefore contributing to the national economy growth, employment and so on and so forth.
You claim that the fact that Serbia has assumed a leading role, although it has yet to offer its apology for the war crimes few years ago, as well as establishment of Serbia’s hegemony at the political as well as at the economic aspect – it is actually unclear what your question is, but I can tell you that, not according to me or the government of Albania, but according to the international financial institutions, the regional economic cooperation and establishment of a common regional market, because we don’t differ in opinions, neither regarding the Berlin Process, nor the common regional market or the CEFTA. The only aspect we differ is “how” not “what.” It is very clear when it comes to “what”. We want precisely this, a common regional market, where the four freedoms of the European Union are fully implemented, but seven years have already passed and the common regional market has yet to become a reality and this is for a reason. Others can probably contribute to discover “the why” or other elements of this “why”, but what matters most is its implementation. So, no implementation process is underway by the states, the governments and state bodies, but this could become a reality through the Open Balkans initiative.
According to international financial institutions, the country’s GDP could grow by 6.7% through such a cooperation process. Can we afford depriving ourselves from this potential? What are we all doing? We are seeking to find new sources of economic growth and not rely on the existing sources only. One of the new sources of economic growth, the most important untapped source and potential is precisely the regional cooperation and, again, I would invite you to hold a hearing session with the Albanian business community currently involved in the regional market. There are many economic operators involved in this market for years now and there are some new stakeholders of this market, but I would call on you to listen to them, their interests that are the interests of the Albanian economy itself.
You ask: “Doesn’t the Premier figure out the relation between this initiative and the ideas about “a New Yugoslavia” that Serbia has proposed several years ago. I don’t know whether there is any correlation between this initiative and the so-called “New Yugoslavia”. I can’t see any correlation between them. When I tell you that this is all about a space, which is nothing else but a space where we are seeking to implement the four EU freedoms. If the free movement of the citizens, goods, capital and services was something granted by law in Yugoslavia, then it would mean that the EU itself is a Yugoslavia.
This is an absurd, unnecessary and incomprehensive comparison, but simply a play on words to precisely undermine this initiative. I think this initiative is in best national interest, it is in best public interest and – since the time available for me to speak is expiring and since I don’t want to abuse with it – I would like to add something else and if you think I didn’t answer to all of your questions, you can ask for more once I take the floor again. I am telling you this, because it is about some questions concerning geopolitics, Russia, China or I don’t know what. I don’t know how the Berlin Process can be a Russian or a Chinese project. What I know is that the Open Balkan initiative is an implementing unit of the Berlin Process and I know that we have invited all the countries in the region to join it and I know that Kosovo is wasting a chance, also in terms of the biggest problem we as two states face with Serbia, by boycotting that table and I know that history tells us – without explaining history behind so many conflicts – that building economic relations and promoting economic interactions have been used as a catalyst to resolve political issues. Thank you!
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Reply:
Mr. Shehu, you said that you listened to me attentively, but you had this sentence written in advance too. This was also the case with your reply, regardless of my remarks, that you read carefully from beginning to end. This means, you didn’t listen to me at all, while I listened to you very carefully and I regret to say but you are talking to yourself and speaking about yourself, doing precisely the same thing you keep doing as a political party over so many years, thinking that you can fool Albanian citizens. Even now as we speak, everyone in your party is talking to themselves and speaking about themselves, and still Albanians are told that they are talking about them. However, it is up to you.
Nobody in Brussels, Washington, Paris or The Hague rejects the Open Balkans initiative. It is true that everyone says that Open Balkans should be inclusive and participation of three other countries in the region is very welcome. This is something I have already stated and I am constantly reiterating since day one.
Yet, I am not going to engage in a debate neither with you nor with anyone else over with who are the United States and Europe siding with.
It is extremely important what our allies think, but it is more important what we all together do for our country and what are Albania’s interests in this process called the Open Balkan initiative. The common regional market defends and further strengthens these interests. Open Balkan initiative is a mechanism to deliver on the common regional market. Like it or not you and others thinking like you, the Open Balkans will continue because it is in Albania’s interest, it is in Albanians’ interest and Albanian citizens have trusted us, the Socialist Party, with protection of their interests.
Thank you!
