Growth Plan ‘Our Pathway to the EU’: The Western Balkans moves forward together, with the Growth Plan as a roadmap
The regional leaders’ Summit ‘Growth Plan: Our Pathway to the EU’ opened this morning at the Palace of Brigades in the capital. At the outset, Prime Minister Edi Rama and the EU Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos, addressed the Summit with opening remarks.
The Summit is continuing its work through two discussion panels: ‘Shaping new initiatives with benefits for citizens and businesses’ and ‘Delivering on shared commitments – Results and acceleration’. The Summit will also launch the Roadmap for the Western Balkans and will address the region’s positioning within the EU’s AI ecosystem, green lanes, cooperation in tourism, progress made, and the next steps toward the regional common market etc.
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Prime Minister Edi Rama: Well distinguished fellow leaders from our neighborhood, Commissioner Kos, dear Marta,
Colleagues and friends coming from Brussels and the neighbor countries, welcome back to Tirana, the city where faith in Europe runs so high that even an old EU veteran like Eurobarometer can’t help blushing like a teenager in love.
I’m delighted to see this summit open with clarity that I was very satisfied to feel just in the arrival of everyone and during the working dinner yesterday. The Western Balkans have chosen to move forward together, with a growth plan as our shared roadmap. A roadmap not to Brussels, but to the freedoms and the opportunities of the European Single Market, where our citizens belong by history, geography and destiny.
Better later than ever, one could say, especially after all those occasions where and when the trains of regional cooperation departed and we stayed on the platform, wrestling with all disputes instead of simply buying a ticket to the future. Let me put it differently, paraphrasing Jean Monnet in a way that fits perfectly with the spirit of our growth plan. ‘’Europe is not built by waiting for it. Europe is built by doing’. And we are here not to postpone today’s work and wait for another time, but to build together what ours is to build today.
Declarations and statements matter only when they touch real life. They matter only if they break the distance between policy language and daily life. People don’t feel integration. They feel lower cost, easier travel, faster borders, better jobs, and freedom of movement. So today let me list some concrete facts. They look like seven doors opening between the Western Balkans and Europe. Roaming charges between WB and EU will end in 2026. Our citizens will feel the next breakthrough directly in their pockets. We removed WB internal roaming, we reduced tariffs, now with the Commission finalizing the legal basis, roam like at home between the Western Balkans and the EU. The end of different roaming systems is coming.
Negotiations begin early 2026, Albania will complete full acquis, by April 2026 and we are ready. This will be our next success after SEPA, which has already cut transaction costs by 5 to 10 times and made money move as fast as the Balkan gossip. Roaming isn’t about phone bills; it’s about removing one more artificial border between our people and Europe. Digital identity, our quiet revolution, soon digital identity in the Western Balkans will mirror the European model.
The commitment we renewed in Skopje, Interoperable Digital Wallets, is not a tech project, it is our entry ticket into a borderless digital Europe. I must tell you with pride that Albania’s digital identity is ready and starting from the new year will spread and will become part of our life. One identity, one access, one digital life crossing the region and increasingly across the EU, and when the EU starts with it in 2027, we’ll be there waiting for the EU.
Three border crossing points from bottlenecks to engines. We all know the Balkan border experience. Sometimes it moves, sometimes it sleeps, sometimes it meditates. But we must end those days. We have agreed with the EU on 16 priority border crossing improvements, including 11 EU-Western Balkan crossings and five CEFTA crossings. Today is the day that with the contribution agreement between the European Commission and the World Bank signed to unlock the finance and the expertise. This means shorter queues, faster tracks, lower logistic costs, higher competitiveness. A track delay is GDP delayed, a track moving fast is an economy moving fast. This is very, very simple.
Four the Wi-Fi for Western Balkans, Europe’s digital infrastructure is in every corner. The Wi-Fi for Western Balkans program is no longer a promise. This is happening. 394 municipalities are selected, 61 in Albania, 114 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 33 in Kosovo, 24 in Montenegro, 63 in North Macedonia, and 99 in Serbia. The first networks go live this year. From village squares to city centers, from schools to tourist hubs, our citizens will feel Europe every time their phone connects. This is what integration looks like when it becomes visible in the daily life of a grandmother in Kukes, or of a student in Pristina, or of a family elsewhere in the region.
Five, the reform agenda. 618 steps towards Europe and counting. This region has never attempted reforms in such a scale, never 618 reform steps adopted under the growth plan, 414 million euro already disbursed, 251 more reforms in progress, 88% of all steps actively implemented. And these reforms touch public finance, rule of law, governments, energy, digital transformation, business climate. We are not closing the convergence gap with just speeches or meetings or what we celebrate, the chapters we open. We are closing it with reforms, tremendously boring on paper, very tiring in life, but transformative.
Six, infrastructure building Europe’s arteries in the Western Balkans, corridor eight, the spine connecting Albania and North Macedonia, which is now critical even for the security in Europe and has become a NATO security corridor, is being upgraded. 344 million in railway investment, 112 million in new road infrastructure. This is not a line on a map; it’s a plug-in cable into Europe’s value chains. When Europe relocates supply chains, the Western Balkans must be not spectators, but a destination. And this is what we are doing together.
Seven, the Western Balkans, Europe’s new investment frontier. For decades, the region was treated as a problem to be managed at its best, or at its worst as a problem to be dealt with. Now investors see something very different: a market, a workforce, a geography, and a political alignment with the European Union. Recent investment events say it all: seven investment declarations, 24 investment pitches, 10 memorandums of understanding between European and Western Balkan companies, four sustainable partnerships just in one conference, behind every number is a job a salary a family when investment comes of course migration will decrease when economies grow borders of course matter less when opportunity grows at home Europe becomes the destination of cooperation not an escape route.
The Western Balkans are going from risk to opportunity. For years, we were called unstable, unpredictable, too complicated. But the facts today say the opposite. We are proving, with reforms and investments, that the Western Balkans are not Europe’s vulnerability, but Europe’s opportunity. A young market, a skilled workforce, a strategic location, a region that wants to grow with Europe and not at Europe’s expense.
We are moving from the margins of the map into the center of our European story, also through the economy. Europe is not something we are waiting for. Europe is something we are building. Everything discussed today leads to a simple truth: the Western Balkans don’t ask favors. And this is something one can feel and can hear in every statement of every one of the leaders around the table. Nobody’s looking for favors. Nobody’s crying for some sweets. Everyone comes with a pride to offer values and offering sweat and tears.
Thanks God, no blood is needed. We are not begging to enter the European Union. We are proving that we are more ready every day. We are not talking the talk. We are delivering the results. Let me say it even more sharply: in the Western Balkans’ convergence, Europe becomes stronger. If the Western Balkans stagnate, Europe becomes weaker. There is no version of a stronger Europe with a weak Balkan region in the middle of it.
So, I want to conclude by telling our people: We are not working toward Europe with empty hands and let alone like beggars. We are working with achieved results, with reforms delivered, with investments secured, and with our homework done in every step. And we’ll keep pushing until Western Balkans enter the European Union, not as guests, but as contributors to its security, to its economy, to its future, and by no doubt, to its safety. Because everyone knows, but Marta knows better, for your own safety, pick a Balkan guy. And this always works. And for Europe’s safety, pick the Balkan guys, we can be Europe’s bodyguards and then Europe will feel much safer and much more relaxed in her sleep.
Thank you so much.
And Marta, the floor is to you and please confirm or deny what I said about the Balkan bodyguard ship.
EU Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos: Thank you, dear Mr. Prime Minister, dear Edi, dear bodyguards.
I agree and you know it’s a pleasure and honor to be here shortly after this year’s enlargement package which has given or brought a new dynamic in the enlargement process. And this is something we are now building on. And yes, you are right, today, it is more than ever about security and Europe cannot be secure without Western Balkans. This is a mistake from the past. We have to do it better or correct these days. And I’m happy that this kind of meeting we have through the growth plan are opening and you mentioned 7 of them. Thank you! Many more doors will open, and your home, Europe, is waiting for you. You are part of Europe; we simply need to formalize this institutionally, so that you become a member state of the EU.
Today we are here to assess progress, to see what has gone well with the Growth Plan and in which areas we need to do more, because we have now completed two years since the start of the implementation of the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans — two years out of a total of four. So, we are at the midpoint between the part that has just concluded and the one ahead of us, and this is the right moment for dialogue.
We have quite a lot to celebrate, but at the same time we need to be honest that two out of six have not yet started passing reforms. We haven’t started with a growth plan implementation. The two best performers have passed about 50% of the agreed reforms and here we see a clear connection between advancing in the succession process and delivering reforms. And in terms of funding being released, we are still below 10% of the total amount, which is 1.6 billion euro, 400 million, and you have said the idea of a 6 billion package has been allocated to the region. So, we can do and must do better collectively.
I would like to use today’s discussion to plan for the second half of the growth plan implementation. So where can we do more? Where can we support you better?
The European Commission really wants the growth plan to succeed. Recently, I have talked about the need to enlarge the enlargement, to integrate all our neighbors as soon as possible into more EU policy areas, into parts of the single market, into our energy market, into pan-European value chains. And we want to make the European Union a lived reality for our citizens today. You’ve been speaking about this, to bring prosperity, security and stability to the entire European continent in the times when we have adversaries from the outside who would like to see us fail.
And in some areas, this is already taking shape. Albanians, Montenegrins and Macedonians already benefit from cheaper transaction costs because of SEPA. Yesterday, we had a discussion. It is 62 million euro per year in North Macedonia, the benefit savings. Thank you. But our ambition is for all of you to advance in sync, so we do not want any of you to fall behind. And because ultimately all the Western Balkans belong into the European Union as equal members, and I’m stressing with full rights as recognition for full alignment with EU laws and EU values. So let us focus today on how we can accelerate in the second half. And there is one particularly important deadline coming up in June. The one-year grace period for unmet reforms from the second reporting round will expire.
Almost 300 million euros that are earmarked for your countries are on the line. This is funding that should benefit your citizens. It should build tram lines and roads, schools and hospitals and much more. Let us also discuss how we can further reduce, you were talking also about these roaming rates. Paying extra for cross-border phone calls is something we no longer do inside the EU and why should you? For this to happen, we need to work on faster alignment with EU rules. And let us unblock projects to improve transport infrastructure, digital innovation, consumer protection and tourism. Yesterday evening at dinner, we talked about this a lot. And this will benefit your businesses and of course also your citizens.
We face a lack of progress on regional economic integration. This results in lower economic growth. A full common regional market would boost your economies by 10%. Lack of progress, on the other hand, also risks access to the EU single market for those who block decisions that would benefit all. I know the reforms we have agreed to together are not always easy, but they allow us to accelerate EU accession and prepare your economies for the single market, for the market of 450 million people. And they unlock opportunities; they give you access to member state treatment in some EU policies and they show our member states that you are ready for more and deeper integration into the European Union. And let us talk about how our instruments can also attract more foreign investment.
The president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, told me she was very impressed by the two investment conferences she attended in the region. And let’s continue working on that. Let’s together bring more sustainable EU investments and trading partners to the region. And we know from the experiences from the past, the closer we will get to the real enlargement, the more investors are coming. It is crucial to make your economic convergence with EU countries a reality now.
We know from the experience that the closer a candidate country gets to the EU accession, you will also get more tourists, more presence in the media of the European Union, and of course, I hope, more curiosity on the side of the citizens of the member states.
Let us use the remaining two years to make the growth plan a resounding success and prepare the ground for your accession to the EU. Because the main goal of the growth plan is to help you develop to be able to become an equal member of the European Union in the future.
Thank you, dear Edi, once again for hosting us here. It’s always good to come here and today we are at the growth plan. I’m coming back soon again, discovering some other parts of your country.
Thank you!