Prime Minister Edi Rama today hosted the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán, who is paying an official visit to Albania. PM Rama and his Hungarian Orbán counterpart held a tête-à-tête before the delegation-level meeting.
At today’s meeting, in the framework of bilateral cooperation, Albania and Hungary signed: Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Albania and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary on boosting cooperation in the field of European Integration, as well as the Memorandum of Understanding for cooperation in water management between the Water Resources Management Agency of Albania and the Ministry of the Interior of Hungary.
After the meeting, Prime Minister Rama and Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán appeared at a joint press conference:
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Honorable Prime Minister, very dear Viktor! It is an honor and special pleasure, not simply this has to be said as part of the diplomatic protocol, but because the Hungarian Prime Minister’s visit to Tirana today is indeed the visit by an old and staunch friend of Albania and Albanians at all times.
Thanks to Prime Minister Orbán and commitment of the Hungarian Foreign Minister and his government we have ushered in a new stage of the traditionally friendly ties, now including economic relations between Albania and Hungary and today’s visit, apart from being the visit by a precious friend, it is also a visit to go on this new path of cooperation that opened up a fresh phase following our delegation’s visit to Budapest at invitation of the Premier and where some targets were determined and based on which we are cooperating and witnessing tangible results,
Hungary is one of the staunchest advocates committed to the EU integration of the Western Balkans and one of the most progressive forces vis-à-vis European Union enlargement. Hungary and Prime Minister Orbán in particular, as I already stated at the very beginning, have steadily and unconditionally defended acceleration of the EU integration of the Western Balkans and Albania.
On the other hand, I am grateful to the Prime Minister and his government for the fact that this support has not only been verbal one in European instances, but it has been materialized with expertise that has been made available to our government in all aspects and sectors we have asked support for, as well as in the framework of twinning projects under the Western Balkans Fund.
We, the Prime Minister and the government of Hungary absolutely agree that it is in EU’s best geo-strategic interest that the Western Balkans integrate into the bloc as soon as possible, and I personally feel extremely good hearing the Prime Minister of Hungary saying what I have repeatedly tried to I say that the European Union needs the Western Balkans as much as the Western Balkans need the European Union and, in this respect, it is very important that this voice, this argument is heard unhesitatingly by all member states.
On the other hand, I am extremely grateful to the Prime Minister Orbán for having always been the leading inspirer of Hungarian direct investments in Albania and several flagship Hungarian companies operate in Albania now and we are fully satisfied for the high quality they have brought and, at the same time, for the respect they show to the country, not simply to the laws of the country, but also to the needs of the country. We wish to see more such companies coming here. We discussed acquiring higher and more Hungarian expertise in the field of energy and, hopefully, in tourism too. Tourism has become a very important bridge between us.
Number of Hungarian tourists visiting Albania keeps growing each year. They are Albania’s “best ambassadors to Hungary” and, at this stage, we strongly believe time is high to think about attracting Hungarian investments in Albanian tourism industry, as Hungary has built an excellent tourism industry, although being a landlocked country, yet it has succeeded in building one of the most vibrant tourism economies in Europe today.
Once again, thank you so much Prime Minister for everything! Thank you very much for the visit! Today’s visit comes after the Hungarian President’s visit to Albania most recently and both visits confirm the absolutely healthy, positive and promising relations between our two countries and, concluding, I would like to reiterate what I have already said while on visit to Budapest. In a way, Hungary has something of its own here in Albania, because when Hungary couldn’t provide Albania support for the EU membership, when it couldn’t provide Albania direct investments, Hungary gave a princess who became the queen of Albania. So I am sure that Queen Geraldine is watching you and on behalf of Albanians she is very grateful to you for being here.
Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán: First of all, I would like to thank my friend Edi Rama for inviting us here, to this extremely interesting country, where I have always been happy to come for the past thirty years.
I have been visiting Albania at least a dozen times, if not mistaken, over the past 30 years, sometimes in the framework of the Democratic Party exchange visits, and sometimes in state visits, and I have always thought that Albanians and Hungarians do not simply have diplomatic relations, but that the two countries also have a deeper relationship, the reason for which is a shared history of suffering the two countries have been through, because, after all, although here in an extremely brutal form, we still had to live quite painfully under communist regimes for forty years and I think this common experience never goes away, even after 40 years we remember it as a shared history of suffering, which brings the two peoples closer together spiritually. That’s why I always come with great pleasure and feel at home here in Albania. I am personally happy to be here and to have been Edi Rama’s guest.
Unfortunately, whole world is moving towards a global standardization – hamburger, smartphone, various brands – and, unfortunately, this is also the case with politics and, on one side, I very much hope not everyone will be involved, but I’m very happy to meet someone who is original and authentic, not letting himself to be involved in such brands, and, in special aspects, can introduce new aspects into politics. And your Prime Minister is undoubtedly such a leader, so I am always intellectually refreshed when I have the opportunity to exchange ideas together.
Except for the one problem that if you stand next to someone, you feel inferior, but that’s the difference between basketball and football, both important topics we are interested in. However, let’s focus on the concrete arguments. We can say that this visit is taking place at a very difficult time, because a major reorganization of the world economy is taking place, which is seriously affecting Europe and I think these are the weak points of economic policies of today’s Europe. And we have been unable at all to deliver improvements in this aspect and our efforts have unfortunately yielded little results in recent years. Europe’s capacities and competitiveness on the global stage are deteriorating and the question is how the membership of the Balkans and Albania in the European Union should be viewed in this context. Is this a problem or an opportunity? What I always tell my Western European colleagues is to imagine the European Union in the current situation in which Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Croatia wouldn’t have been EU member states. What would today’s Europe look like? What would the European economy look like? What kind of growth would that European Union have? There would be no economic growth! The only reason there is growth in the European Union today, not zero, one and a half percent, but perceptible economic growth, is because we Central and Eastern Europeans brought economic dynamism to the Union. And I think this is the lens through which we should look at Albania and through which we should look at the Western Balkans in this respect, because Albania has potential for growth. Europe needs to ask where its growth potential lies. If it does not want to lag behind in the great global competition, it should find out where the growth potential of the European Union lies? And the answer is that the growth reserve is exclusively in the Balkans and not in other European countries. There is no other region that represents a growth potential for the European Union, only the Balkans, including Albania. That’s why, although Albania is a candidate for membership, we always call for Albania’s membership in the European Union. But, unfortunately, the situation is actually quite the opposite: if we do not urgently include the Balkans, including Albania, in the European Union, we cannot stop the deterioration of the Union’s competitiveness, we cannot gain momentum, and we cannot stand our ground in global competition, that is, the European Union can regain its competitiveness if there are more of us. Therefore, the space of the European economy must be expanded and strengthened in economic and security terms. Therefore, with all due courtesy, I have to say that it is unacceptable and shameful how slowly this expansion process is progressing. I just looked at the agenda and I noticed that it took Albania thirteen years to start accession negotiations. In ten years from now, if the predictions are correct, there will be no EU among the world’s largest economies, or at most the Germans will be among the world’s ten largest economies. If we expand the European Union so slowly, how will we be competitive? This pace is simply unacceptable; it is a suicidal slow pace. That is why Hungary strongly supports the accession of the Balkan countries and Albania’s membership. Albania can always count on Hungary to support your membership for the reasons stated here, out of friendship for Albania and our own interest. Albania can always count on Hungary to support your membership for the reasons stated here, out of friendship for Albania and our own interest.
On the other hand, As far as bilateral economic cooperation is concerned, I was pleased to hear the Prime Minister’s appraisal for the work of Hungarian investors in Albania. We also like it when they have a good opinion of us, we are still human, and recognition is always nice. And I am also glad that Hungarian investors behave in a respectful manner. We are a country of a size where many countries larger than ours invest. And of course, investment is investment, as the Romans said: money has no smell, but its owner does. So you can be a good investor or a bad investor. Some respect the locals, some don’t. And Hungary has seen everything in the last thirty years. There were investors who respected us and some who didn’t; there were those who thought that the whole world is just one big global economy and it doesn’t matter who the natives are. We have suffered a lot from this, we know this behavior, and I am very confident that Hungarian companies will never behave like this anywhere, including in Albania. They always give respect to Albania; they acknowledge that this is the country of Albanians, where we are welcomed as guests, and where we have to thank them for cooperating with us even if we bring the capital.
So my dear friend Edi Rama, you can expect this in the future as well. The Hungarians will be investors who will respect the locals, respect your history, your intentions, your future, and we are looking for the form of cooperation that is good for you and for us.
Regarding tourism, I would like to make one more comment. Hungary is a landlocked country, yet tourism accounts for more than 15 percent of the gross domestic product. It is not an easy thing, so we do something for tourism, we understand this industry. We are happy to share this knowledge with you. And Hungary has an investment strategy in which we support Hungarian investments abroad. And today we agreed that we will extend this investment strategy to Hungarian tourism investments in Albania. I hope that we can establish good cooperation in this, as we did in the banking sector, in the telecommunications sector, as it is now taking shape in the energy sector and water cooperation.
Dear Prime Minister!
On behalf of Hungary, I wish you success! Thank you for being here!