Prime Minister Edi Rama is on a visit to Verona, Italy, along with the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, and the Prime Minister of North Macedonia, Dimitar Kovačevski, as the three Open Balkans initiative participants are jointly showcasing some of the most popular wine varieties at the Wine Vision by Open Balkan stand at the international wine and spirits fair Vinitaly 2023.
Prime Minister Rama, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, and North Macedonia’s PM Dimitar Kovačevski held a meeting, followed by a joint press conference:
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President of the Republic of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic: Prime Minister Rama, Prime Minister Kovačevski, thank you very much once again for being together with our delegation here in Bardolino, some 20 km from Verona, Italy, and I would like to very much thank the Mayor of Bardolino, our Italian host who made this event possible.
I am deeply grateful to you dear colleagues for the fact that again we had very fruitful talks on real issues, on issues that affect real lives of the citizens in the Open Balkan countries.
We discussed ways how to help the ordinary citizens so that they no longer face any obstacles and remaining barriers to the free trade, the free movement of goods, services, capital and people in the Open Balkan countries.
I would like to invite Albania, Albanian citizens and North Macedonia’s citizens to invite Serbian citizens more frequently to their countries, and in the meantime I urge Serbian citizens to visit Albania and North Macedonia and make the most of the hospitality approach of both these countries.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Thank you and first and foremost I would like to thank the Mayor for his hospitality and for making us feel home for one long hour and for the opportunity to hold this communication.
The three of us are here today as we succeeded to participate in one of Europe’s biggest wine production events in Europe in Verona, Italy. For the first time ever, our wine producers are showcasing their varieties in these international exhibitions, after an initial similar event we jointly launched in Belgrade last year, which will be repeated and it will certainly be a much bigger and will attract broader attention this year.
The exhibition will represent an excellent opportunity to talk about our agriculture, wine production, our challenges and ambitions, and it will also represent an incredible opportunity for our producers to establish contacts with the best wine producers and traders in Europe and in a wider region.
On the other hand, the exhibition was also an opportunity for us to share views ahead of the upcoming Open Balkan meetings. We will be meeting by end of May and a bread exhibition is set to take place in Albania in early autumn that will be followed by another wine fair.
Another very important topic is that we are working on a strategic approach aimed at strengthening our ties with the European Union, to further enhance cooperation, concurrently making sure that very clear dialogue about “who you do what” and, as we have already stated previously, when it comes to the European integration, the policy chapters and clusters, the paragraphs, the sentences, the commas, we are very keen to fulfil them all.
Concluding, I would like to highlight some very significant figures on the volume of trade exchanges. Trade volume among the Open Balkan countries rose 24.8% year-on-year in 2022, or by one fourth to be more precise. It is an enormous growth, which is definitely a direct outcome of what we have delivered and we are definitely happy to see the Berlin Process making progress too.
We don’t see the two initiatives as opposing ones, but as complementary to each other and we will always call on other members of this category or this our region – you name it – to join whenever they wish to do so. It is their own choice whether they join the initiative half-hearted or heartlessly at all, as we can’t control whether they do it heartily or heartlessly. We can control the results and the benefits for our citizens only.
Prime Minister of North Macedonia, Dimitar Kovačevski:
Thank you my friends, President Vucic and Prime Minister Rama, for together participating in one of the biggest and leading exhibitions in Italy, where we are jointly showcasing our wine varieties in a common Open Balkan stand.
When we talk about same topics, it is most likely that we repeat many things frequently, but as the saying has it “repetition is the mother of learning” and that’s why I am going to repeat some of the most important things.
First of all, it showed that the Open Balkan initiative is yielding results for people and businesses, it clearly showed what we have repeatedly stated that the Open Balkan is not a political initiative, but quite the opposite, it is an economic initiative based on the four freedoms of the European Union, namely the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital. And it is also demonstrated through the figures already mentioned by Aleksandar and Edi and I would like to point out some other figures, showing that North Macedonia’s trade exchanges with Serbia edged up by 53% in 2022 compared to the trade volume in 2019.
This wine exhibition is very important for North Macedonia also because our country is the second largest producer in the region after Greece and North Macedonia’s yearly wine exports are valued over 60 million euros. So you will find today a range of high-quality wine varieties from the best vineyards of North Macedonia, being showcased together with the wine varieties from Albania and Serbia.
We want to show everyone that the regional cooperation in place not only helps the citizens in each of our countries separately, but also all the citizens of the three countries to internationally position themselves in one of the world’s biggest exhibitions.
The data we have shared on the future benefits once a common electronic payment system for road tariffs becomes operational between North Macedonia, Serbia and Albania and with the open ID card system, under which citizens from the three countries can freely work in each of our countries. There could be no greater motive or bigger challenge for other countries in the region to come and join the Open Balkan initiative, because if there is anything proving right is that if we work together, we are much stronger.
Thank you!
