TIRANA, Dec 21 /ATA/ PM of North Macedonia, Zoran Zaev, stated on Tuesday that the “Open Balkan” is an irreversible process.
During the joint press conference, at the closing of the “Open Balkan” summit that was held on Tuesday in Tirana, Zaev said that today is the last day of my term as Prime Minister of North Macedonia and I am honored to participate in person and contribute to achievement of a noble mission as is the Open Balkan Initiative.
“Since the beginning of the initiative, my colleagues and I, friends and brothers, Aleksandar Vucic and Edi Rama, have highlighted the fact that the Open Balkan is a joint authentic process that has started from Albania, Serbia, North Macedonia, but is also designed to benefit the whole region and as such is open to all countries in the region”, said Zaev.
“All the remaining countries in the region have an open, clear and unequivocal invitation to join. We encourage all the countries of the Western Balkans to contribute together in this common field, to connect with each other, to develop economically, above all without barriers, without restrictions, to be free, to adapt all this development to the needs of our people. We ask for contributions. We call for contributions in order for the Open Balkan Initiative to be an initiative of the Western Balkans to provide benefits for all our citizens, for their daily lives, through a single common market,” Zaev said.
“When President Vucic and Prime Minister Rama, together with me, outlined the vision of the Open Balkan, we agreed not to let Euro-skepticism dominate in our countries due to the failure of European policies. European values and ideals will always be greater, more attractive than the European administration per se,” said Zaev.
In this regard, the Prime Minister of North Macedonia added, “The Open Balkan is an extraordinary contribution to the values and ideals of the EU, it is a contribution to the region, which brings us to closer to the EU itself.”
“When the EU fails, we have an obligation to take initiatives that europeanize the region and guarantee a better and more European life for our citizens. Brussels may decide to slow down the process, but Europeanization and European standards in Albania, NM and Serbia should not wait and should not stop,” he said.
“Agreements on free access to the labor market, based on the principle of the EU, are concrete steps in implementing the practices applied by the EU itself. We are already implementing a common practice in the EU, based on the agreements between member states. For so long we have emphasized that the Open Balkans is not an alternative to the EU, but a facilitator of the European idea of the Balkans. “The Balkans is Europe and nothing less than that,” said Zaev.
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