Joint press conference of the Prime Minister Edi Rama and the EU Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Olivér Várhelyi following bilateral meeting: 

 

PM Edi Rama: Good evening everyone!

It is not just for the sake of courtesy, but also for the sake of truth that I would like to express my special pleasure for today’s visit by Commissioner Várhelyi, who everyone I believe remembers having visited our country even on very tough days. The Commissioner was among the first to stand by us, coming to Albania to show his solidarity with all the hard-hit families both in terms of human lives, relatives and their properties because of the earthquake.

On the other hand, it is also a special pleasure that since day one in office, the Commissioner has been a generous and relentless supporter of all Western Balkan countries and, in this case I can speak for Albania, he has been a staunch supporter of Albania in speeding up the path towards opening the doors to accession negotiations with the European Union. As he will himself say today, he didn’t suffice himself only by tackling the aspect of the European Commission and the European Union relationship with Albania and North Macedonia, but he has been personally committed to a massive economic and financial plan for the whole region. So I want to thank him publicly for his presence, for his support, for his way of approaching efficiently to issues and obviously for his honesty in saying things as they are, both when he has to tell these things to us or when he has to tell these things on our behalf to Brussels.

We are profoundly grateful and we will forever be grateful. The cooperation with the Commission has obviously yielded its special fruits and clearly in all those aspects that are related to the established goals by the Commission to advance the integration agenda, we have continued to make progress being fully convinced that we have to deliver on all these, namely the justice reform, the fight against organized crime and corruption, further improvement of the public administration and other reforms, not because Brussels, Berlin or Paris are asking us to do so, but because it is our obligation to our own children that fully coincide with the very membership goals.

The new economic plan, about which I think it would be better for the Commissioner to speak about, is an exceptional fresh opportunity being provided by the new European Commission, which took office by adopting a new approach and is implementing a new policy towards the region and Albania as part of this region. But, what I would like to underline is that the plan in question is a concrete, tangible proof of many good reasons and a deep conviction that stands in the vision of the Regional Schengen; the vision of a region, where development through cooperation is the only way out into a new space and to leave a much better Albania and a much better region to the future generations.

The new plan includes a multitude of aspects, but the key overreaching aspect, I think, is that the plan will help us gradually integrate as a region in the European market and that will go side with the individual integration processes and accomplishing all those goals related to the rule of law, the functional institutions and with the entire state establishment that will be under the constant monitoring of the European Union.

To conclude, I would like to recall the fact that the Commissioner and the European Commission have not been with us simply to offer condolences and show their solidarity with us in the wake of the tragedy and they are not simply and only with us in that case when thanks to them and under the leadership of the European Commission President, an unforgettable conference of incredible solidarity with Albanian people was called and where we were granted a significant support. And they were not only here through the Commission to only carry on with the implementation of the Reconstruction Programme on construction of new school buildings and the cultural heritage monuments. Although the COVID hit everyone, although the COVID got the European Union and every member state into trouble, the Commissioner was the first to call from that part of ​​the continent called the European Union, to assure me that the European Union and the Commission will stand by Albania and the region despite the hardship the Union was going through.

That’s the truth, that’s what actually happened.

So, we are at a point  where the relations with the European Commission are very much concrete and when we can openly and confidently tell Albanians that our shared path with the European Commission and the European Union in the coming years is not simply the path of reform efforts, but also the path towards building a new economy in the region, it is the path towards construction of the region’s entire interconnectivity with new roads, railways, digital networks and other components, about which I will give the floor to the Commissioner to further speak about by thanking him once again for being with us here and for providing us the opportunity to show him that full-fledged Albania hospitality because he will join us for a friendly dinner later.

Thank you very much!

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi: Thank you very much, Mr. Prime Minister! Thank you very much also for the kind words you just said, but I don’t deserve them, since I am simply doing my job.

I am very delighted to be here today in Tirana and I am also happy with the hospitality I was extended here. I just came over from the parliament, where I was able to address all lawmakers in that plenary hall and it is always an honour. Now I get to see the Prime Minister, which is again an honour and this shows me the priority and great importance Albania attaches to the European Union. We are fully aware of that and this is also a great responsibility on our side.

I have brought some good news and I do hope that the people in Albania will see this as good news.

We are coming to the end of the renewal of our enlargement policy. As the Prime Minister also pointed out, when this Commission took office, we made it very clear, on the very first day, when you had this telephone call, that we mean business, we mean business in the Western Balkans and we want to reinforce our relations with the Western Balkans and we mean business when we talk about enlargement policy. And it is true that we have managed to restore credibility and predictability of the whole process through the adoption of the new methodology. It is true that we have been able to get the agreement on the opening of the accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia.

 

And it is also true that now I stand in front of you and I am happy to announce that the third leg is here to hold the whole construction and that is the economic development and investment plan. The plan is supposed to accelerate the catching up of the social and economic development of the whole region with the European Union. But we also had the COVID crisis as a challenge, so it is also meant to help the countries in the region with the post-Covid economic and social recovery process.

Let me give a couple of figures, but also explain to you what we mean under this plan. This is a plan that we have constructed together with the countries in the region. We are not here to tell what is best for you, but we are here to listen to you and we have been listening.

We reached out each and every single country in the region, including the prime ministers of each country and we have received the projects, ideas, the areas of economic development that can help to do the recovery be the fastest and through which we can help to bring growth and jobs in the most meaningful and fastest way to the region. To this end, we have designed the whole package we had in mind and when we designed this whole package, we also wanted to make it sizeable so that it has real impact on the ground. We think that with the plan we are here to present to you today we can change the landscape in a major way and in the entire region of the Western Balkans in four or five years. Why do I say that? We are allocating nine billion euros in grants to the plan. We are working with the international partners, the international financial institutions to raise our game through an additional 20 billion euros in guarantees. That is almost 30% of the GDP of the entire region.

This is a sizeable and obvious major project, a plan that should focus on the areas of the economy that would deliver growth and jobs, the most and the fastest. And in that, we have seen that the single biggest shortcoming in this region is that we lack infrastructure, we lack transport infrastructure, we lack energy infrastructure and we lack the digital infrastructure. But we also lack the human infrastructure.

When we talk about the transport infrastructure, we have in mind – and this has been endorsed by the leaders in the region – the single biggest bottleneck in front of the economic development and the trade flows is the lack of roads and rails connecting the whole region with one another.

And we are frontloading these projects and it means that in four to five years from now the landscape can be completely different. 

We see that there is a big gap in terms of the availability of the broadband internet and the needs of businesses and the public. So, we are here to offer our help to build broadband cord networks, the highest technology broadband internet networks for the entire region. Because this is what you will need, if you want to grow a digital economy. We also see, even though not so much in Albania, but it is a big challenge that we have energy scarcity in the region.

And not only energy scarcity, but also a high level of dependence on coal and lignite. If we can phase out coal and lignite and only replace them with gas, this would bring down the region’s emissions by over 60% immediately. We have huge potential here in Albania. Albania could provide gas supplies to the whole region and I am very happy to hear the Prime Minister that he is ready to cooperate with us on this as well. This is also going to be a main game-changer.

Meanwhile, in Albania we are ready to frontload all the projects that are locally important, but also that will develop the region at the same time. We are ready to frontload the Blue Highways along the entire coastline. We are ready to work also on the gas pipeline. We are also ready to contribute to two hydropower plant projects in the country and these are all large scale infrastructure development projects that should bring about a major economic development impact, also in terms of changing the investment climate in the country.

Investment climate is crucial to attract foreign investments. Of course, in that the rule of law also plays a very important part, where we need business climate that guarantees a stand-by tax system, where you have an independent judiciary and predictability of the whole legislative environment surrounding business activities. 

And of course you also have to invest in human resources. We are ready to do that. Education is key and we are ready to set up a programme together with the Albanian authorities, but this is also true for the rest of the region, so that we have the right skills delivered for the younger generations in the Western Balkans, the right skills that the economy needs, the right skills with which they will be able to make a living here. Through all of these, we should be able to overcome the single biggest challenge facing the region, and that is the brain drain. So that we can start to see, I would say five to ten years from now, the slow moving back of the young generation of the Western Balkans to work for their countries and work for their economies. 

With the Prime Minister, we also touched upon the Country Report that we presented a day ago. We saluted the Prime Minister on all the achievements and the relentless work that Albania is carrying out o deliver on all aspects of enlargement, especially on those concerning the Council conclusions opening the way before the accession negotiations. We see of course that there is quite a bit of challenge still ahead, we see that work has to be reinforced and continued regarding the fight against corruption, the organized crime and lately a very good track record is emerging when it comes to the operations against organized crime, but we need to see more and more and we are hopeful that this is possible.  We also see that there is movement on the Constitutional Court. We need the judges to be there, we need a Constitutional Court to be functioning, so we need to see the Constitutional Court members taking their offices. As you might have seen, just before this meeting I visited the centre for the vetting of the judges. We stand by that institution, which is a very important one, a unique one. But this is the guarantee for Albania to actually go ahead and have the first intergovernmental conference open and move ahead and really engage in the accession negotiations. We need them to do their work as they are doing very important work. I don’t think how famous they are outside Tirana, because they are a constant benchmark of our work.

And finally, we also touched upon the rest of the conditions included in the electoral reform and here I can only repeat what I just said in Parliament that we need a credible electoral reform, an electoral reform on the basis of which we can have free and fair elections. This is going to be the test also for the first intergovernmental conference with Albania, which I hope is going to happen this year. Thank you!

–The first question for the Commissioner. You said in Brussels that you will visit the country to see on the ground whether the June 5 agreement was breached by the new amendments to the Election Code passed earlier this week in Parliament. Now you are on the ground here in Tirana, where you are expected to have other meetings with the chair of the opposition and the President, but preliminarily do you have an opinion on whether the agreement has been infringed because of that, because there are various opinions by European Parliament members, mainly German MEPs, and there is a different perspective if the U.S. Embassy here in Tirana? Personally speaking, do you think that it has been breached? As you mentioned, the election reform is a prerequisite for the intergovernmental conference. Do you think that condition has been fulfilled by Albania? Thank you!

For Prime Minister Rama; the Constitutional Court is another condition for the intergovernmental conference. Although you are the head of the government and it is not that you actually do much about that, do you have any projection about what Mr. Ruçi said that the Constitutional Court will start operating on January 1? Thank you!

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi:  On the electoral reform, we are currently analyzing what Parliament voted upon on Monday, but what I can tell you judging from the political debate that preceded the whole process of the vote in parliament on Monday, it seems that it boils down to one issue and in that regard I can only repeat what I said yesterday in Brussels that as long as the post-election coalitions are not prevented to happen and are not made more difficult through these reforms, we can look into the draft, a law by now, with an open mind, but we cannot limit the fairness, we cannot limit the rights of the elected to form coalitions, be it before, or after the elections. To us, this is a key issue.

On the June 5 reforms, I think that they were very important and I do hope that on that basis we will have all political parties participating in the elections and this is going to be a crucial issue. And, yes, I can confirm I will be meeting the extra-parliamentary opposition leader after this meeting. Thank you!

PM Edi Rama: I am not able to make any projection precisely because as you said it is not a process depending on the government or it is actually related to the Prime Minister’s office. The process of filling the Constitutional Court vacancies has nothing to do with the government. The Justice Reform has made it possible that the entire process on building the new justice bodies becomes entirely independent and I very much hope that this happens. My conviction, which I also shared with the Commissioner and I have always shared with others as well, is that Albania cannot be penalized because of its overhaul of the justice system.

So, why, or what is the reason that we don’t have a functioning Constitutional Court as we speak? Is it because we have abolished or removed that from the Constitution? No! We don’t still have a functioning Constitutional Court, because we embarked on a cleansing that was never done before, but it was not even imagined by any other preceding government here, or any preceding parliamentary majority in the country, and not even any country in the region. We have done what we had to do, the cleansing has taken place, while the taking of the vacancies takes its time and its processes. And the Commissioner rightfully mentioned the major role of the European Union, specifically through the international monitoring operation of this part of the vetting process.

Vetting, as all Albanians have seen, is moving ahead. It also has its setbacks, its pace and challenges, it is being monitored by the European Union and it is not monitored by the government, and it doesn’t depend on the government whether it is being delayer, or taken forward. At the end of the day, I know it is Albania as a state that is assessed and not only the government when it comes to the Progress Report, or the steps, and the functioning of the judiciary and the Constitutional Court in this case is one of the key points. As far as I am concerned, I think Albania has to have this Conference open years ago, but I know on the other hand that it is the European Union that takes the decision for the intergovernmental conference to happen. It is not us to decide over that. If the European Union will see the fulfilment of this point in particular, that would be something that nobody actually be speaking about. If they want to speak about, they can very well do that.

But we cannot connect our work to dates and timelines, because this is not in our hand. We can connect our work with progress and when it comes to the Progress Report I am really pleased that the progress is there and it is obvious. What we can do is to continue our work.

– I also wish to start my question with the Commissioner. Referring to the funds for the Western Balkans, you mentioned that in a few years’ time, you expect the whole landscape to change in the region. Therefore, how will this funding be implemented?

Whereas for you Mr. Prime Minister, the question is the following: Do you expect the Commission’s annual Progress Report, which I think that based on the terms that have been used it is the best report in the recent years, will actually influence the sceptical EU member states? Thank you!

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi: Yes, I said that the landscape could change, which means that I brought the plan and I tried by doing my best to explain it, but now it is up to the Albanian authorities to implement it. We will of course cooperate with the Albanian authorities. We have already started to design how best and how the fastest we can start their implementation. This is going to be a challenge, because of the size and the regional nature of the whole exercise we are doing, but it is doable. However, everybody will have to work very hard. If you look at the plan, I think it is going to have a regional impact; it is for the regional participation and the regional benefit. So, we will need everybody to cooperate in the Western Balkans. Lately we have seen it with the mini-Schengen and the emergency and also through the COVID crisis, a never before seen cooperation and we want to build on that. And this is why it is going to be crucial to design the implementation rightly, because we don’t have much time left and therefore we have to start work already from tomorrow.

PM Edi Rama: I have got nothing new to say about that. I don’t believe that Finland, Sweden or other EU member states for that matter are less sensitive than the Netherlands when it comes to crime, corruption, justice and so on and so on. However, there is a different internal dynamics that happens in various countries and what makes these countries look at the Progress Report differently, based on their own interests. So, it is more than legitimate, as it is their own interests and I cannot make any prediction, but what I hope is that we continue to sit down around the table of the intergovernmental conference, since the opening of the negotiations has been agreed upon by everyone. But, on the other hand, we are so used to prepare ourselves for weddings and without having the other party coming in, so we have now given up such preparations and if we are going to be called and invited, we are already dressed and we can go and continue the work. There is no concern about that.

Thank you very much!