TIRANA, Dec 7 /ATA/ Prime Minister Edi Rama stated on Wednesday from Brussels that the European Union should give more support to the Western Balkans.
The discussion about the landmark EU – Western Balkans Summit, held for the first time in Tirana, continued on Wednesday in Brussels, where Prime Minister Rama was invited to a special session, together with the President of North Macedonia Stevo Pendarovski and the Prime Minister of Montenegro Dritan Abazovic.
In his remarks during this session, Prime Minister Rama also put the emphasis on the financial convergence for which, he said, the EU should consider doing more in this aspect as far as the Western Balkans is concerned.
He pointed out that yesterday the EU decided to include the universities of the region in the alliance of EU universities. “This is extraordinary, as you usually have to be a member to do this. We are not, we are far from being a member, but we are already part of this alliance, which means that the young people of our countries can study without leaving the country through technology, in every university and our universities are already able to form alliances that bring more projects, more support and so on. That’s it for the young people,” said Rama.
He added that “it is very important not to be left without opportunities to be more involved in the spaces where we can receive more support.”
“We received budget support for energy from the European Union. 85 million euros for Albania is excellent, but it is not so excellent, when you see that these 85 million euros were taken from our IPA funds. So the IPA funds are earmarked for our projects, of course we would very much like to use them for energy, excellent, but when I see and yesterday I had a conversation with Mitsotakis and learned that 85 billion on top of domestic revenues from the activity of Greece come from the EU. “Of course, when you have another 85 billion, regardless of tax collections within the system, you get breathing space,” Rama said.
Rama said that “The European Union should think about financial convergence. It will not be in the way one might think, that someday when the time comes we will receive the same thing. It is a mistake, it will not go towards convergence, but by leaving, they will become richer and we will not be able to follow them, we have to think about this. So they should give more resources, give us more capacities. We are not talking about EUR 85 billion, we are certainly talking about support, which is really important for us.”
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