The Regional Growth and Convergence Summit started in Tirana today, focusing on the European Union integration of the Western Balkans and implementation of the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, providing new support for the six countries in the region.
Prime Minister Edi Rama hosted the participating regional leaders, as well as the Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, Oliver Várhelyi.
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Prime Minister Edi Rama: Welcome back to Tirana, where today we gather to deepen our cooperation as like-minded nations seeking to join the union of European states. Albania has ushered in a new stage on its path towards EU membership, tripling our efforts to achieve this high strategic objective.
First, we are intensively delivering with a new speed the vast needed and necessary homework, adopting the EU body of law, deepening reforms all over the board and elevating our fight against corruption and organized crime to a new level.
Secondly, we remain firm in pushing to enhance our relationship with all of our regional partners, promoting peace, dialogue and cooperation among the Western Balkan six countries.
Thirdly, we are closely collaborating with our EU allies, exchanging views on how to upscale this joint effort and improve our chances of success.
The EU’s new Growth Plan itself is a truly encouraging outcome of an honest and open exchange of views. I could not be more grateful to Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, our Commissioner Várhelyi and Chief Gert Koopman for their readiness to pay heed to our concerns, arguments and ideas as to why the EU needs to find new ways to help us on our path towards full-fledged EU accession.
It is very clear to me that this fresh opportunity provided under this innovative plan represents not only recognition by the EU of our decade-long efforts to build a common future against the wild winds of the past, but it also challenges us to demonstrate our readiness for the common European destiny. Opportunities can be either taken or wasted; we must fully commit ourselves without any hesitations, without limitations, without coercion and yes, take advantage of this opportunity.
I acknowledge that unlike Albania, some of the countries in the region face complex issues among themselves. However I appeal that we put these differences aside and commit to a cooperative and vital work that lies ahead of us with the aim of transforming the region and our countries.
Of course, bilateral issues remain there, but they should be resolved through cooperation and bilateral dialogue, without interfering in this new multilateral exercise. It was precisely 10 years ago, when Western Balkans six leaders came together at the Chancellor’s office in Berlin for the first time in our history. The goal was not to deal with the wounds of the past, but to seize the future that calls for our cooperation as a basic precondition for EU membership. Today this condition is not only a principle of good conduct, but a criterion to assess our countries’ maturity through the new Growth Plan.
Throughout these 10 years, the Berlin Process has shown us how much easier said than done it is to actually ensure the free movement of people, goods, services and capital. Albania, Serbia and North Macedonia launched the Open Balkans initiative to speed up the process based on the principles of the Berlin Process.
With the new Growth Plan now in place, the imperative is clear; either we take the necessary steps to move closer to the EU and closer to each other or risk failing to take up a seat at the EU table and to provide the economies of our citizens a security for their needs for years to come. We either do it together or fail together. Our economies cannot thrive by impeding each other’s free movement, nor can we ensure our citizens’ well-being without the tools of peace and cooperation across borders, across languagesand across different versions of history.
Either we make peace to work for our prosperity or the lack of this prosperity will cause us to lose peace. This is how the European Union works; this is how the Western Balkans should work. The EU is now readier than ever to help us become part of its constellation. We must be readier than ever to help ourselves not to miss this newly opened window of opportunity.
On our own, we are all insignificant and our importance to the world’s richest continent is almost negligible, but together we carry great importance and potential for positive opportunities. How can we become freer and bigger if our export-import trucks still have to wait 26 million hours a year at our regional borders? How can we not remove non-tariff barriers now and miss out on a potential 3% increase year after year, each year, just by doing that? Are we crazy? Are we lazy? Aren’t we stupid? Or what are we?
Isn’t it yet clear to all of us that there is no short cut in this journey and no free lunch in the EU? Respect for the rule of law is an indisputable condition to receive new funding and to benefit from opportunities within the EU internal market. Respecting the rule of law is an indisputable precondition to receive new funds and to benefit from opportunities within the EU internal market. At least that’s what the new Growth Plan stipulates. The people who have been invited to participate in this summit are all important to our journey towards EU membership. They represent not only the executive branch of Albania, but also the legislative, judicial and other independent institutions.
Most of them are members of our national team of negotiators, but today they are here to witness first-hand that they also matter to Albania’s success or failure in getting the best of the new Growth Plan. For us to take advantage of the new Growth plan over the coming years, we need to deliver tangible results, not only externally with other partners in the region, which is a must, but also internally with other government and institution branches that do not depend on the executive.
There are a number of conditions that must be met if we wish to receive the additional funds under the new Growth Plan for our countries. Let me share something with you. According to the findings of the analytical control of Albania’s legislation, we in Tirana need a new wave of reform efforts focusing on welfare, the rule of law and anticorruption. Renewed joint efforts are needed to be made by the executive, legislative and judicial branches and this is essential. Inclusion of other stakeholders is critical to transform the ambitious objectives of this process into a consolidated track record. Although Albania has made significant progress in reforming the justice system, much remains to be done to deliver on the standards of an EU country. And according to the findings of the legislation screening process, more than half of what we need to do is related to the rule of law and the judiciary.
I am sure that Commissioner Várhelyi and Director General Koopman will further elaborate on what the new Growth Plan represents for our countries and for our citizens and what we need to do to benefit. What I can say is that Albania is ready for this very challenging exercise and we will work closely with everyone else to quickly move towards the common euro payments area, towards facilitation of trade and transport and the digital market.
Let me provide just a few examples. If we meet all the criteria for the European common payment area, the fees our citizens have to pay to send money home will be cut six times, as it will reduce the cost of all business transactions with EU members. By doing this, alone, the Western Balkan countries can save nearly half a billion euros in people’s pockets.
Albania’s ambition is to be ready for our application by June. If we succeed in cutting the waiting time by just 3 hours, just 3, at our regional borders and at the European Union borders, we can gain an overall increase of 25 billion euros. However, to deliver on that we need to carry out a rather complex process together, and I can share here that based on the experience from the Open Balkans, where Albania, Serbia, and North Macedonia made an effort to speed up this process, this exercise is not easy. If we succeed in including all 500 of our municipalities in the Western Balkans Wi-fi in Public Spaces internet programme, which is actually a new twin to the EU program for free internet in public areas, we can take it to the entire society of the region to a whole other level in terms of fast, high-quality services.
On the other hand, if we integrate into the European digital network, we can give our NBMs a modernization boost with a significant impact on their costs and benefits.
Having all this said, I cannot emphasize more than this the need to leave Balkan politics out of this common challenge and focus all on the success of this extraordinary exercise, but also with many benefits.
Thank you very much for participating and I am very pleased to give the floor to Commissioner Várhelyi.
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EU Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi: I am happy to be back in Tirana following the last two summits we held in this city in the past 15 months. “Tirana is the place to be”.
As you’ve seen, once again, even though we’re coming to the end of the mandate, we still want to leave nothing behind, something that is serious, something that is tangible, and something that is short and medium-term, to accelerate the enlargement process.
The enlargement process, which is not about chapters, agencies, all sorts of agencies and arrangements that we have, but it is an integration process. Integration process means that the Western Balkans economy, society, is to be integrated into the European Union, which also means that the European Union should already provide the benefits of membership even before accession.
This is the whole idea behind this plan that you see, and it is an ambitious plan, I know, because we have basically half the time to implement it, so this plan should go until 2027. But I think that we have full trust in the Western Balkans that you can reap the benefits. We think that this plan is capable of contributing to doubling the economy of the Western Balkans in the next 10 years.
Doubling the economy of the Western Balkans means that the development gap, which is now significant, because we are talking about countries, anything from 50 percent to 30 percent of relative development to the EU average, means that there will be some already 100 percent, and even those who are lagging behind now will come up to at least 60 percent of development compared to the European Union.
So I think what you see now in front of you is much more than it is going to be. So I think that it is also clear from the introduction of the Prime Minister that there is a significant ownership already of the Growth Plan in the region. But for this to go forward, we also need the region to go forward fast. And that means to deliver on the EU reforms that are necessary to make this plan functional.
This plan is only functional if you apply EU rules, if you quickly introduce all EU rules, then you can enter the Single Market even before you join the EU.
And my third wish or request is to our international financial partners, because of course this plan is to mobilize on top of the 30 billion euros Economic and Investment Plan another 6 billion euros, which will bring the intensity level comparable to current Cohesion and Structural Funds countries, it will be 90 percent of what they get will be here in the region by 2027.
But this will only arrive into the economy. Because this is aimed at the economy of these countries, not to cultural heritage, but jobs and growth.
But it will only arrive if the international financial partners are quick. So it also means that the EIB, EBRD, the World Bank, the IMF, everybody now needs to step up their work. And we have to be much faster than we have been before. So with this, I want to greet you all.
I think that we are at the beginning of a huge change and a rapid change in the Western Balkans.
PM Edi Rama: I cannot agree more than that with the Commissioner for the EIB, for the EBRD and all these Bs that they should be fast. I would now like to give the floor to Gert Jan Koopman.
Gert Jan Koopman: Dear Prime Minister, dear leaders,
Just to expand very briefly on what was already said, the leaders attending today’s summit, which takes place just a few weeks after the previous summit in Skopje, is in itself an evidence of your commitment and this is how the speed, the Commissioner referred to shortly ago, so for everyone to move forward, the momentum should be maintained and reforms should be accelerated.
Secondly, it is not only about the leaders alone, but as Prime Minister Rama put it, this is an effort of the whole society, and independent institutions must do their work to deliver on these changes. Otherwise we will not succeed in delivering on this growth we are calling for.
Thirdly, the implementation stage is not easy at all. It is a tough process for the countries in the region as they have to deliver on a range of ambitious changes to the national legislation to align with the EU standards. It is also difficult, because some of the initiatives should be totally operational, like CEFTA. And fourth, the pace is high, but there is only one month left to complete the reform agenda, because I know that lawmakers will adopt the required legislation by the end of April and the quality of legislation should be very high. We are on your side, but time is ticking and we should have a very high quality product in the next four weeks so that we can allocate funds by May, before the summer recess. Thank you!