NASA invites media to Albania’s Artemis Accords signing ceremony

TIRANA, Sept 19 /ATA/ The Republic of Albania will sign the Artemis Accords during a ceremony at 12 p.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 21, at NASA Headquarters in Washington, becoming the 73rd country signatory.

NASA Deputy Administrator Matt Anderson will host Albania’s Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Ferit Hoxha and Ambassador of the Republic of Albania to the United States Ervin Bushati for the ceremony, together with U.S. Department of State officials.

This event is in person only.

In 2020, during the first Trump Administration, the United States, led by NASA and the State Department, joined with seven other founding nations to establish the Artemis Accords, responding to the growing interest in lunar activities by both governments and private companies.

The Artemis Accords introduced the first set of practical principles aimed at enhancing the safety, transparency, and coordination of civil space exploration on the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

Principles for a Safe, Peaceful, and Prosperous Future in Space

NASA, in coordination with the U.S. Department of State and seven other initial signatory nations, established the Artemis Accords in 2020.  With many countries and private companies conducting missions and operations around the Moon, the Artemis Accords provide a common set of principles to enhance the governance of the civil exploration and use of outer space.

The Artemis Accords reinforce the commitment by signatory nations to the Outer Space Treaty, the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices and norms of responsible behavior for civil space exploration and use.

Peaceful Purposes

International cooperation in space is intended not only to bolster space exploration but to enhance peaceful relationships between nations.

Therefore, at the core of the Artemis Accords is the affirmation that cooperative activities should be exclusively for peaceful purposes, consistent with the Outer Space Treaty.

Transparency

Transparency is a key principle of responsible civil space exploration, and NASA has always taken care to publicly describe its policies and plans.

The Artemis Accords signatories are committed to upholding this principle by broadly disseminating information regarding their own national space policies and space exploration plans.

Interoperability

Interoperability of systems is critical to ensure safe and robust space exploration.

Therefore, the Artemis Accords signatories commit to use reasonable efforts to utilize current interoperability standards, to develop new standards when necessary, and to follow such standards.

Emergency Assistance

Providing emergency assistance to those in need is a cornerstone of any responsible civil space program.

Therefore, the Artemis Accords signatories commit to taking all reasonable efforts to render necessary assistance to astronauts in distress, and the signatories reaffirm their obligations under the Rescue and Return Agreement

Registration of Space Objects

Registration is at the very core of promoting safety and sustainability in space activities. Appropriate registration of space objects can help to facilitate consultation and coordination, where appropriate, to avoid harmful interference among activities.

The Artemis Accords reinforce the critical nature of registration and signatories commit to coordinate regarding registration for cooperative activities involving space objects.

Release of Scientific Data

NASA has always been committed to the timely, full, and open sharing of scientific data. Artemis Accords signatories commit to the open sharing of scientific data and plan to release scientific results publicly so that people around the world can benefit from the journey of exploration and discovery.

NASA has always been committed to the timely, full, and open sharing of scientific data. Artemis Accords signatories commit to the open sharing of scientific data and plan to release scientific results publicly so that people around the world can benefit from the journey of exploration and discovery.

Preserving Outer Space Heritage

Preserving historically significant sites and artifacts will be just as important in space as it is here on Earth.

Under the Artemis Accords, signatories intend to preserve outer space heritage, including historically significant sites and artifacts.

Space Resources

The ability to extract and utilize resources on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids is critical to support safe and sustainable space exploration and development.

The Artemis Accords reinforce that space resource extraction and utilization can and should be executed in a manner that complies with the Outer Space Treaty and in support of safe and sustainable space activities.

Deconfliction of Space Activities

The Artemis Accords also provide for operational implementation of important obligations the Outer Space Treaty, including those related to due regard and harmful interference.

Artemis Accords signatories will provide public information regarding the location and general nature of their operations. In addition, signatories commit to seek to refrain from any intentional actions that may create harmful interference with each other’s use of outer space. They’ll do so through “safety zones”, in which signatories intend to provide notification of their activities and commit to coordinating to avoid harmful interference. The size, scope, and duration of safety zones will reflect the nature of the operations being conducted based on scientific and engineering principles. Safety zones will be temporary, ending when the relevant operation ceases. The signatories commit to respect the Outer Space Treaty principle of free access in their use of safety zones, as well as the principle of due regard.

Orbital Debris

Preserving a safe and sustainable environment in space is critical for both public and private activities.

The Artemis Accords signatories commit to plan for the mitigation of orbital debris, including the safe, timely, and efficient disposal of spacecraft at the end of their missions.

Bouissou visited the Albanian Telegraphic Agency on her first trip to Tirana on Tuesday.

Her impressions of Albania were the first topic of discussion, with Zhupa informing Mrs. Bouissou that Albania enjoyed a boom in tourism this year.

Zhupa and Bouissou discussed the issue of fake news at length as a worrying phenomenon facing the global media, as well as the ways to deepen collaboration in the imperative fight against the global phenomenon of fake news.

The two agreed that direct cooperation between news agencies in verification and timely detection of fake news is essential in this fight.

Given that AFP’s fact-checking network, which has seen it take a leading role in the global fight against fake news, Zhupa and Bouissou agreed that AFP can provide a valuable contribution through online training sessions for journalists in order to check and verify false information, as well as other training programs on environment and green energy.

Further on, the two interlocutors also highlighted the very good relations between the two news agencies and ways to further boost cooperation they have established many years ago.

Another topic of the meeting was the deontology and ethical reporting, especially when it comes to reporting on women and girls.

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“We strongly condemn the actions by the Government of Kosovo that are escalating tensions in the north and increasing instability,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

“We call on Prime Minister to immediately halt these violent measures and refocus on the EU-facilitated Dialogue,” Blinken added.

“The United States strongly condemns the actions by the Government of Kosovo to access municipal buildings in the north of Kosovo by force, actions it took against the advice of the United States and Kosovo’s European partners,” the U.S. Department of State said in a press statement.

“These actions have sharply and unnecessarily escalated tensions, undermining our efforts to help normalize relations between Kosovo and Serbia and will have consequences for our bilateral relations with Kosovo,” according to the U.S. Department of State.

“We call on Prime Minister Albin Kurti to reverse course and on all sides to refrain from any further actions that will inflame tensions and promote conflict,” the statement read.

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The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) assesses that Iranian state-linked cyber actors are almost certainly responsible for the series of cyber attacks against Albanian government infrastructure from 15 July, which caused significant impact to online public services and other government websites.

“The websites of the Albanian Parliament and the Prime Minister’s office, as well as ‘e-Albania’, a portal that Albanians use to access a number of public services, were attacked and subject to a shut down. The attackers also leaked Albanian government data, including details of emails from the Prime Minister and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“Iran’s reckless actions showed a blatant disregard for the Albanian people, severely restricting their ability to access essential public services. The UK is supporting our valuable partner and NATO ally,” British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a press statement.

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All the participants agreed that importance of setting higher journalistic standards, international cooperation in the media sector and common efforts to fight disinformation form the ENR foundations.

”Reporting on European issues poses a challenge, especially when taking into account that majority of the participating news agencies are located far from the European headquarters in Brussels,” Patrick Lacroix, CEO of Belga News Agency, said in his remarks at the ceremony.

“Our biggest goal is impartiality by sticking to the facts in the interest of the public opinion,” he added.

The CEO of the German news agency DPA, Peter Kropsch said that “it is important for the participating news agencies from the EU member states and the candidates to establish independent journalism and combat disinformation.”

“The aim of the ENR is also to allow smaller news agencies with a small budget budgets gain equal access to pan-European information like larger and better funded agencies,” he said.

”The two-year project will provide from four sorts of partnership among the participating agencies, as well as the solidarity partnership to include the Ukrainian news agency, Ukrinform,” Kropsch added.

“We have agreed to provide support to journalists in a country that is currently facing a major crisis due to Russian aggression,” he noted.

Vera Jurova, the Commissioner for Values and Transparency, said in her remarks: “More than ever, we need European news, we need to bring different perspectives together, because the challenges that we face go far beyond one single country.”

“The current war launched by Russia against Ukraine, spiking energy prices or climate change are all issues that know no borders, and to better grasp the full picture, your readers need a cross-border dimension,” the EU Vice-President Jurova stated, emphasizing the importance of accurate, reliable, fact based information.

“I very much hope that the ENR project will contribute to combating disinformation and announced, in the context, that next week the European Council will discuss a draft law on press freedom, which should allow the EC to provide tools so as to combat the pressures on the mass media – physical threats, abusive processes, political or economic pressures,” she said.

” No journalist should be spied on because of their profession. The mass-media should not be turned into a means of propaganda,” Jourova added.

“The European Commission will continue to support such projects, as unfortunately a deterioration of the state of the media has been observed in many European countries. In the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, we realized that we need strong media to preserve democracy. We cannot have quality media without protecting journalists from political, economic and any other kind of pressure,” Jurova pointed out.

Select content from the Albanian Telegraphic Agency (ATA) started being published on the European Newsroom website since July 7.

The agencies dpa (Germany), AFP (France) head the project, with participation of other news agencies including ANSA (Italy), AGERPRES (Romania), HINA (Croatia), APA (Austria), Belga (Belgium), BTA (Bulgaria), EFE (Spain), Europa Press, AGERPRESS (Rumania), FENA (Bosnia and Herzegovina), MIA (North Macedonia, STA (Slovenia), TANJUG (Serbia), TASR (Slovakia).

The project is funded with 1.76 million euros by the European Union.

The European Newsroom is run by a consortium of 16 news agencies, covering 11 EU Member States as well as four candidate or potential candidate countries, as well as by another two agencies that later joined the project.

Each participating news agency will continue to report under its own brand and their stories will be published on the ENR website in their respective language on Mondays and Thursdays.

Once a week, ENR selects a European topic to which the agencies contribute and it is published in English.

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In a statement at official opening of the Open Balkan Summit in Belgrade, the EU Commissioner affirmed his strong support for the Open Balkan initiative since the very beginning, saying that the regional cooperation is the anchor of peace, stability and prosperity for the people in the region and beyond.

“I have supported the Open Balkans Initiative since the beginning, as regional cooperation is the anchor of peace, stability and prosperity for the people in the region and beyond. This is much needed especially in times of crisis,” Várhelyi said.

“With the EU Economic and Investment Plan for the Western Balkans we are offering the region an EUR 29 billion investment package. This has the potential to transform the region and boost its economy to a level of prosperity never seen before,” he stated.

“But a functioning Common Regional Market is also key to maximise the benefits of EU support to your economies and to realise the full potential of the Economic and Investment Plan. You have worked a lot to make it work among all six partners and I understand that you wish to move forward even in smaller circle to the benefit of your economic operators and your citizens,” he added.

“The agreement that was reached last week on the free movement between Serbia and Kosovo gives a sign of hope that the Open Balkans may soon be implemented in the whole region,” the EU Commissioner underlined. Allow me to recall a few principles that would ensure the success of the Open Balkans Initiative. First, it has to be a step on the path to European integration, as the Common Regional Market is intended to be. Second, it needs to remain open to all, in line with European standards and compatible with your regional and international obligations,” he went on saying.

“Third, EU standards must be at the heart of the initiative. Open Balkan agreements that meet EU standards are moving the region forward on the EU path. Therefore, I am ready to help you ensure that actions undertaken in the framework are on the right path and brings you even faster within the EU,” the EU Commissioner for Enlargement Oliver Várhelyi concluded.

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“It used to be rare that journalists would come here,” says Elton Caushi, head of tour operator Albanian Trip, who I meet in the capital, Tirana.

“When they did come, they only wanted to talk about blood feuds and sworn virgins,” he added.

The traditions that once dominated tribal politics in Albania’s mountains are interesting, but I’m here to probe a more recent view of the south-east European country.

Thanks to its beaches, Unesco-stamped cities and hiking routes, formerly communist Albania is being lauded as a “hot new” European travel destination beyond backpacking and dark tourism.

For decades, Albania had a reputation as a dangerous, no-go country, thanks largely to its being politically isolated under dictator Enver Hoxha, who died in 1985. After Albania’s 1997 civil war and the end of the Kosovo war in 1999, more visitors gradually started coming to Albania, attracted partly by prices lower than in Greece and Italy.

In 2009, 1.9 million tourists travelled to Albania; in 2019, the last full pre-Covid year, the figure was 6.4 million.

The food here may be a factor in this shift.

I’m with Caushi in a nameless restaurant close to the city centre.

“The tourists haven’t found it – it’s mainly drivers eating here,” he says. I breakfast on sumptuous tasqebap – a soupy mix of veal, garlic, onions and tomato sauce – before Caushi takes me for 9am dessert at Mon Amour, a Parisian-style patisserie. We pay a non-Parisian 390 lek (£2.80) for coffee and baklava pastries with ice-cream.

After breakfast I drive to Dhërmi, a village that has seen myriad hotels pop up along its coast over the past decade.

Dhërmi’s main, non-festival beach is clean, neatly covered in sun beds and flanked by restaurants. All fine if you just want to lie back and plough through your Kindle. The small beaches north of here, such as Splendor Del Mar and Empire Beach Resort, feel gloriously Balearic in comparison. Swimming in the clear, turquoise sea off Splendor is clock-slowingly tranquil. I haven’t had a better dip outside Asia.

Later, on a walk to nearby Gjipe beach – sandy, lovely, isolated, with zero hotel development – I spot a concrete bunker and stare at this dome with a sea view: a grey lump of cold war paranoia on an otherwise idyllic coast.

I see another bunker. Then another, in the hills when I drive back to Dhërmi. I begin counting them, but soon realise bunkers are as common here as the sunbathing skinks. About 173,371 were reportedly built in Albania between 1975 and 1983, as Hoxha prepared for potential attack.

Elton warned me that the touristy cities of Durrës and Sarandë were already attracting enough holidaymakers to make them unpleasantly crowded. I stop instead in Gjirokastër and Berat: two smaller cities of renowned beauty.

I prepare by reading Chronicle in Stone, the 1971 novel by Ismail Kadare – Albania’s noted author and Gjirokastër resident. In the book the romance of Gjirokastër’s steep, bumpy paths, snaking around buildings such as Skenduli House and Zekate House – owned by elite families and now museums – shines through his story of 1940s bombardments.

Further north in Berat, also a Unesco-listed city, I walk up to the castle. Berat has a similar historic richness to Gjirokastër – and similarly steep climbs – but feels more rugged.

The breezy lack of health and safety concerns in Berat makes it even more enjoyable. At the Red Mosque ruins, I scurry up the scarily thin tower’s pitch-black interior, popping my head over the top so vertigo can override my rising claustrophobia.

“I came to Albania because you can do beach, cities and hiking in a week,” a US tourist tells me. Indeed, after a two-hour drive to Tirana it’s a two-hour bus ride to Shkodër, gateway to the Albanian Alps.

I do a classic trek: the 17km route between Valbona and Theth in the Valbona Valley national park.

To get in the mood, I read Edith Durham’s High Albania, the British writer’s document of the region’s tribes, based on her 1908 treks.

The toughness of the climb, with horse-dotted woods giving way to craggy half-paths, threatens to outmatch the wild beauty of the area. But three hours in I reach the peak, and the forest-splashed views work their magic: it’s Swiss-level stunning.

The snaking road to Shkodër was surfaced with asphalt for the first time last year.

Elton says that some fear Theth’s new highway could lead to over-tourism.

“But I’m happy for my friends there: 15 years ago you’d see a cow, a chicken, a cornfield. Now they can get to school faster, to the hospital … it’s good for the locals.”

I finish back in Tirana, staying at Hotel Boutique Kotoni in the city centre, then the quieter Morina hotel, next to the Grand Park of Tirana. Being the capital city of a country with an anti-capitalist regime until 1992, Tirana didn’t get proper bars until well into the 1990s, according to Caushi. After a construction boom in the 2000s, the city now has a population of 560,000. Hoxha’s opulent former residence has a trendy cafe directly in front of it.

I’m in Tirana fleetingly, but visit Bunkart 1, Hoxha’s underground complex, which is now a museum and art space. Exhibitions outline decades of dictatorship, interspersed with art installations. Wrongly balanced, the mix of dark history and video art could come across as distastefully hipster-ish, but it’s captivatingly moving. Another reminder of how quickly a place can change.”

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MEPs from the Foreign Affairs Committee commended Albania’s strategic orientation and unwavering commitment to European integration, and express their clear support for the country’s democratic transformation and aspiration for EU membership.

MEPs regret the failure to open long-overdue accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia, emphasizing full solidarity and sympathies with citizens of these countries. This failure undermines public attitudes towards the EU and is a serious danger to EU enlargement policy as a whole, according to the report. MEPs stress that both countries have fulfilled the conditions set by the European Council.

The report, adopted today by 66 votes in favour , 4 against, and 3 abstentions, notes that Albania’s EU membership depends on lasting and irreversible reforms across fundamental policy areas. MEPs urge Albania to maintain and intensify its efforts to reinforce the functioning of the judiciary, strengthen democracy, the rule of law and the economy. It should also empower civil society, counter corruption and organised crime, ensure media freedom and guarantee the protection of minority rights, including the LGBTQI community.

Commending Albania’s continuance as a reliable and committed external policy partner, fully aligned to the EU’s foreign, security and defence policy, the report calls on the EU to “critically assess historically important security implications for the stability and unity on the European continent and Western Balkans in the context of the Russian aggression against Ukraine”. It urges member states to demonstrate European unity by officially starting accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania, considering both the geopolitical implications of the decision and the fulfilment of official criteria by the two countries.

The EP Rapporteur Isabel Santos said “Albania remains a fully reliable and committed strategic partner. It continues to move forward with fundamental EU-related reforms and is fulfilling and maintaining conditions for starting accession talks. It is only fair that the Council finally agrees on opening long-overdue accession negotiations with Albania, not least in the face of mounting geostrategic challenges.”

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Under the circumstances of the new media regulation enforced by the Russian government (Roskomnadzor), which is heavily restricting media freedom, the Board of EANA, where the Albanian Telegraphic Agency (ATA) is a full-fledged member, considers that TASS finds itself in violation of the purpose of EANA as it is laid out in the Statutes of the Alliance, not being able to provide unbiased news, which stand at the core of EANA’s mission statement.

Having this in mind, and also the request from members to expel TASS from EANA, the Board, as the executive body of the Alliance, has unanimously decided to immediately suspend TASS from EANA, until a General Assembly will decide, according to the Statutes, whether TASS should be excluded from our Alliance.

EANA serves as a forum for cooperation and exchange of information and experiences among European news agencies.

The purpose of EANA is to safeguard and promote the common interests of its members in all areas essential to their work and activities. EANA’s aim is also to ensure that member news agencies can work as providers of unbiased news.

EANA supports the principles of freedom of the press and shall strive to facilitate for member news agencies to work in accordance with these principles.

EANA currently has 32 members from all over Europe.

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“The two countries have done everything that we have requested from them to start the negotiations. It is unacceptable that they have continually been denied that progress,” Santos stated.

“My request is pretty clear. You have said that the first Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) will be held before the end of this year. I would like to hear from you the commitment for a date for the first intergovernmental conference for Albania and North Macedonia, because we cannot always say that that the first Conference will take place next month, next month and so on, but his next month never comes,” she said.

“Our investment in the region is very important, as well as the dialogue with the two countries, but they want us to deliver and we must show them results,” MEP Santos insisted.

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