Prime Minister Rama’s speech at the start of the press conference:

Good evening!

Many thanks for the patience of those of you who came from Tirana. Thank you to the rest whom I found here in Shkodër.

Today we had an extended meeting of the government with the mayors and leaders of several agencies that are connected with the functioning of the local government. We discussed a number of important topics, which are also reference points for the progress of the European Union membership process, a process that, as I have said repeatedly, requires commitment, persistence and results from everyone, not just from the government, because it’s not the government that will be integrated into the European Union, but Albania overall, and, while this means that the work of the government is very important, it is only a part of the entire process.

Therefore, we are in great need of increasing the pace, of accelerating the process of modernization of governance at both levels, as well as of increasing the quality of human resources.

We discussed a number of topics, as I said. The Minister for Local Government did a presentation regarding the implementation of the Territorial Administrative Reform, where a series of data clearly showed that the reform has been successful, but on the other hand we have some important challenges, among which aligning the performance of the local government units with the support from the government. We need to have a reasonable performance in all municipalities as there are different performance levels, sometimes with strong differences.

We must re-evaluate the salary level of the municipalities because today the municipalities of Albania are divided into 5 levels. We will move to two levels and make a salary increase to bring the compensation opportunities of employees in the second level municipalities closer to those of the first level.

We need to create a more uniform property tax collection. In a certain number of municipalities this happens with a progressive positive result, in a certain number of municipalities this almost does not happen at all. Also, a much better performance in collecting the cleaning fee. There are municipalities with very good results, there are municipalities with results that leave much to be desired.

We discussed the necessity of a new approach from the municipalities towards a great asset, forests. After having guaranteed a reasonable level of protection of forests from the destruction and misuse, we now need to make this asset available towards the economic growth of the country, and the economic growth of the municipalities. For this, we have a plan which will support the mayors. Today, 67% of municipalities do not have such plans, and this is an alarming figure.

We discussed what Albania’s entry into this new phase of life brings for the municipalities, which are part of the membership process, and the new instrument of the European Union, which is the growth plan. The New Growth Plan practically engages Albania with a series of European programs where municipalities will have new opportunities to access funds in the European Union. For this reason, we also discussed the relevant structure to support them in writing and applying for projects that will bring additional income to the municipalities.

We have discussed the necessary easing of procedures for building permits in the countryside, so that people who build or repair their own houses will not have the same procedures as residents of the city or of areas of heritage importance.

We have a significant number of remaining legalizations that, for not so incomprehensible reasons, are, so to speak, in the last chain of the process, but by engaging the municipalities in the process, I believe that we will boost the membership process, as we see in the State Cadastre Agency. The significant improvements that are made continuously with the mortgage service system, do not go in parallel with the improvement that we need to make in addressing legalizations because they are two completely different processes, but also because maybe we need help from the municipalities.

These are more or less the main topics.

We have talked about the large program of digitalization of services at the municipal level, where we will finance about 50 million euros in cooperation with the World Bank, and we have focused also on the tourist season, the figures of the first two months are beyond any forecast again and if the trend will continue like this, and in all likelihood it will continue like this, then the number of 10 million tourists from last year will increase very significantly, which for the municipalities and for our country means a very significant increase of the volume of waste that must be cleaned and treated. On the other hand we also discussed the new cultural and artistic calendar of this season and we have heard throughout the day all the opinions and suggestions of the mayors on issues even more specific for certain areas.

Another important point has been the revival of old assets; old schools, abandoned buildings, long-standing health centers, military units left in certain areas that no longer have any purpose, aiming to put them to work through local government projects.

I’m not going any further, I’m leaving it up to you to ask the questions, but overall it’s been a homework meeting, if I can call it that, and there’s been a lot of interaction and a lot of results, in our opinion.