Joint press conference of Prime Minister Edi Rama and the Minister of Culture Elva Margariti on opening the International Culture Weeks event: 

 

“Albania Welcomes the World” is the most recent initiative launched by the government of Albania to promote cultural cooperation among countries, an event that is set to be materialized through a cycle of activities under the International Culture Weeks scheduled to start at Tirana’s main Skanderbeg Square today.

The International Culture Weeks has been designed as an international cultural parade that would bring together the tunes, the smells and the tastes from 18 countries around the world. With a series of events scheduled to take place throughout this year not only in Tirana, but also in other major cities across Albania, the International Culture Weeks initiative is a follow-up, inclusion and unification of a several-year tradition into a single brand dedicated to cultural cooperation among nations.

Prime Minister Edi Rama and the Minister of Culture Elva Margariti appeared at a joint press conference to provide more information on the latest initiative on international cultural cooperation.

In his remarks, the government head Edi Rama said that Albania expects the international culture weeks to become an annual event with view to showcasing traditions, various and diverse cultures from all over the world, and the most diverse forms and expressions of each civilization and definitely to creating new spaces of interaction with other cultures for entertainment of citizens, visitors and tourists that happen to be visiting our country during the international culture weeks.

It is a program- he went on saying – we expect to attract all age groups, a program designed to provide a reason to all the categories to actively attend the international culture weeks. This will exponentially increase the intensity of cultural activities of a socializing nature, not only in Tirana, but also in other cities. This new program, which is in an inception phase, will be enriched in the upcoming years. It is a new experience from which we will mutually learn and understand more. We start off with the week of France and then continue according to a calendar. In the meantime, I would like to emphasize that some of the countries engaged have been involved for a long time with organizing their cultural weeks, such as Italy, Germany or France, but this joint commitment makes them more accessible to the public by including, not only narrowly artistic activities, but also popular, street activities, or even directly the culture and culinary tradition of other countries.

On her part, the Minister of Culture Elva Margariti added that hat after a long period of preparations, several months of intensive and continued efforts in the framework of this initiative, an idea forwarded by ​​the Prime Minister at the end of last year to open Albania’s doors to all countries we cooperate with for years now, but most importantly, to create even more circles of youth cooperation, but not only young people, businesses and institutions in Albania with our partner countries.

Prime Minister Rama and Culture Minister Margariti also answered the reporters’ questions, including a question about the National Theatre issue, construction of which has yet to kick off.

The Premier noted that nothing has changed regarding the National Theatre project, but the whole problem lies in this difficult moment of transition from paperwork to implementation due to soaring prices that have compelled us to review the manual we have for this purpose, because under the existing manual it is no use asking companies to participate in competitions, or develop investments in the public interest, as they are more costly than under the old manual. The National Theatre – he went on saying – will be built as it has been designed and as we have promised, but, as I have previously stated, not all plans and projects can be implemented within the timeframe when an event that can neither be predicted nor avoided hampers and delays everything.

Unfortunately, it is 3 years now that we make plans and projects to implement, while the country is coping with powerful shocks beyond our reach, such as the earthquake, pandemic or war that has started in Ukraine, which in fact has sent the prices skyrocketing, especially the prices of construction materials.

Prime Minister Edi Rama also answered to the media interest regarding the upcoming tourist season. “I am fully confident that the upcoming tourist season will be the best in all aspects, as work has continued uninterruptedly to clean up the territory and not only that, but a new scheme is also in place and its implementation as soon as the summer tourist season begins and the coastal areas will be all cleaned ahead of the season.”