In his opening remarks at the meeting, seventh intergovernmental session, Prime Minister Edi Rama said:

Welcome! Hello everyone! Thank you! We would have wished to welcome you on a sunny day, but I wish this rain and all the issues we will examine today are a good omen.

As always, it is a pleasure to be together. This is the seventh meeting of the governments of Albania and Kosovo and we gather today after an immensely challenging year due to the pandemic, but also after delivering on a significant number of areas on which we have agreed previously.

We have signed a considerable number of bilateral agreements and implementation of several of them is already underway. A part of them have been implemented, whereas enhancing efforts to implement other deals and creating full synergies between the two countries in all areas is the challenge we now face.

I am convinced we will bring our cooperation closer to the citizens of our countries, and we will take free movement, employment and interaction to a whole new level.

I am glad that we are jointly committed to lifting the temporary residence permits, to opening the joint border crossing point in Shishtavec, Kukes, and to regulating the local border traffic regime.

In the meantime, today’s agreement also streamlines the procedures for every applicant to automatically obtain a permit to stay, which is a natural thing, yet it took us to sit and materialize it on a joint document.

On the other hand, we will also create favourable conditions for citizens on both sides of the border, granting them access to the labour market, taking another step towards gradual unification of the markets of both countries in a single space, with Albanians being able to work, study, create families, access every possible public service and retire by benefiting any contributions or social rights regardless of their geographical location, either in Albania or Kosovo.

Mutual recognition of the social insurance contribution, which is part of this package and which sends a significant message on guaranteeing the freedom of every Albanian or Kosovo citizen to choose the country they would wish to live and work on each side of the border, but also ensure free movement unhindered by bureaucracy.

Under a special agreement, the two countries commit to automatic recognition of the university diplomas in the very near future. The verification process will be carried out electronically and a long procedure of bureaucratic documents is ultimately removed.

It is an innovative agreement and its success would definitely form the basis for automatic recognition of the higher education diplomas issued by all countries in the region and beyond.

Cooperation in education, science and innovation has been seen by both governments, since the very onset, as a top priority and it is our duty to prepare for deepening this cooperation as an urgent need to strengthen our human capital.

Implementation and materialization of the European Union’s investment plan in the Western Balkans by joining forces and minds to jointly draft and prepare quality projects with a significant impact on both countries is another top priority.

Once construction work on Tirana-Rinas-Durres railway begins, we will also sign a Memorandum of Understanding, as we already agreed during the previous meeting, to immediately embark on the feasibility study regarding construction of the railway between Durres and Prishtina.

It is a long-time dream and ambition steadily expressed by the governments on both sides of the border, but we rightly feel a sign of relief today for the fact that we are taking another step and we are confident that depending on quality of this feasibility study, we will be able to jointly present the project and access funds under the EU investment package.

On the other hand, we are fully aware of the need to open the markets and boost economic and trade interaction on both sides of the border.

We are also aware that a good part of this problem has to do with the administrative barriers, mostly part of an bureaucratic indulgence and inclination to “no” rather than an objective reason not to proceed and further unblock interaction in order to fully integrate our markets and make full the interaction between our institutions in view of a total freedom of movement.

That’s why I am very glad that we are finally signing the agreement to simplify and streamline customs procedures and goods control regulations, an agreement that was preceded by three important documents of practical value signed a day ago by the General Directorates of the Customs Administrations of both countries. The three documents are designed to unify the border crossing procedures and enforce implementation of the transit procedures based on the risk profiles.

In the last few years, we have made significant efforts to align our foreign and security policies and we already have a solid framework to further strengthen our political and diplomatic cooperation and enhance the number of our joint diplomatic missions.

This has actually been one of the discussions about which we have stricken a chord and fully agreed together with the Prime Minister and in addition to complete resonation, which has never been a big deal in none of the previous joint meetings, we can now fully afford to open up much more spaces that the consular services take place in shared buildings.

This would create a unified address for all the citizens of both countries currently living abroad, but, on the other hand it would also rationalize spending, because such way we will pay less to share same spaces and we can therefore invest more in delivering on activities designed to tackle of the needs of our Diasporas.

Close coordination among us is essential and I am convinced that the accords we are about to sign today are not just the next agreements along the line of a series of documents that won’t remain at the Greek calends, so to say, but they are agreements based on a common conclusion that today, more than anything else we need to embark on swift implementation of the measures, already clear to everyone, so that from agreement on paper we move to another reality when it comes to free movement of people, goods, services and capital and so that the common space be really a common one in terms of interactions in the reality of the everyday economic, social and cultural life.

What we are about to finalize today, after having agreed on it during the previous Prishtina meeting, is creation of the Intergovernmental Coordinating Secretariat, which will oversee in details implementation of the signed agreements and will report at the relevant offices of both prime ministers on any problem that may pop up in the process, so that we can deliver on what we have been lacking in the past, namely the interaction speed to produce tangible results.

It has never been an issue of political readiness, but an issue unfolding as part of bureaucratic implementation of this readiness, so that all the agreements we have signed are translated into tangible results and into totally new realities.

Once again, I would like to point us something that has been a sort of common denominator at all talks I have had with (PM) Albin and I am very pleased that what we have been forwarded to sign at this meeting is somehow an initial expression of this and I very much hope more readiness will follow to fully implement what we agree together.

Today we are not merely attending a meeting, always with its symbolic significance, but we are attending a session on concrete accomplishments and concrete tasks materialized under concrete agreements.

I am convinced that if we keep working with the same spirit we have been working to prepare this meeting, totally focused on its results, in the next joint session we will see concrete results, not just statistics, but concrete outcomes of the real interaction among folks, enterprises and interest groups, cultural communities and so on and so forth.

Before I give the floor to the Prime Minister, I would like to share something that will certainly make you happy just by hearing about it.

In the last cabinet meeting we agreed to prepare and complete the unified alphabet book next year, a jubilee year to celebrate Albania’s independence anniversary.

The children’s reading and spelling book is an essential text for the beginners or the entry-level pupils and for years now it is a textbook, which, based on our existing education law, just like other textbooks, has been considered a multiple-choice textbook. We plan to produce a joint children’s reading and spelling book and I am immensely pleased to share this objective together, so that if we agree on producing a common beginners reading and spelling book both in Albania and Kosovo, such a unified, or joint Albanian language beginners book be available at all spaces, where children are taught to read and write Albanian.

This would certainly take high-quality work to produce a joint holy secular book of all Albanians that will later become a precious artefact preserved in libraries of those who initially receive the book to read and write Albanian but will then preserve it as a vestige from the first year of school.  This means we will publish a very special book in terms of its value.

After announcing the plan on the reading and spelling book, I will give the floor to the Prime Minister.

Again, thank you for taking the trouble and for coming here.

Elbasan is yet another important Albanian region in our common history, with a valuable contribution to our national culture and extending again my welcome to everyone, I would like to give the floor to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo.

Prime Minister Albin Kurti: Honourable Prime Minister of Albania, Mr. Edi Rama, dear Edi,

Honourable cabinet members of the Government of the Republic of Albania and of the Government of the Republic of Kosovo,

We Albanians are optimistic people, even when the day is not sunny and it rains, we say it will be with blessings.

Let me first remind you that today marks two years since the terrible earthquake that struck Albania and the families of the relatives of the 51 dead certainly have a special grief and sorrow today. We empathize with them by asserting that their pain is also our pain.

This is the seventh joint meeting of the two governments, but it is my first meeting in which I participate as Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo.

Last year I was Prime Minister for 4 months, this week, this year it has been eight months so I am making progress and every time I come to Albania, not only as Prime Minister, I believe as for many other citizens of Kosovo, I have a special sensation which is not easily described, nor is it easily explained.

Our well-known singer Nikollë Nikprelaj said that we are like an oak with two branches. In short, we are one, although with two dialects that are becoming more and more unified thanks to the interaction in many fields, thanks to music, art, sports, etc.

Now everything I am saying is being analyzed and studied well where I wanted to come out and what message I am sending, but even if I did not say anything it would still be the same because they would say that this is also a message.

What I feel, especially in Kosovo, which spent the last century waving the national flag, is that there is a kind of suppression of desires and feelings when it comes to Albania.

A kind of repression caused by the trauma of the sudden change of symbols that has resulted in a kind of collective shock. So, suddenly the whole society in Kosovo experienced a replacement that was not asked for and was not allowed to be debated.

This is and will remain a painful topic that makes even more painful the fact that it is not politically correct to discuss it, i.e. a request to suppress a desire and an opinion.

– To say that we are happy to be a divided nation would be foolish.

– To say that we are happy to have two states because that way we are stronger would be as exaggerated as it would be short-sightedness too.

– To say that you are committed to national unity you would be considered nationalist.

– And to say that we will join the European Union you would be considered a diplomat.

I have the impression that the latter are proving more successful, so let’s talk as diplomats, but let’s work as patriots.

And as diplomats we are aware and clear that the meeting of our two governments is on the horizon of integration. The better-designed and well-constructed the horizon of our relations, the more likely is the integration into the European Union which is our destiny.

Our integration between our states is both strategic, but also more purposeful. Progress in the number of agreements must be accompanied, as Prime Minister Rama said, with quality in their implementation because they are of both economic and historical importance.

And as patriots we must strengthen both our states. Because patriotism today is to fight corruption and organized crime; to fight for freedom of media and freedom of opinion; to fight for an independent judiciary and for an inclusive economy with social justice. And only this kind of patriotism will strengthen our states and will realize the dreams of our citizens to live proudly in their country.

Cooperation with each other is not a desire and a choice but an obligation and duty, as we have the responsibility of exalting and protecting each other everywhere and to everyone.

The more aligned and unified we are in our attitudes about our truth, the stronger and more powerful we will become, because we are more than two states, but distracted. We need to find our common calling.

The more integrated we become the better the lives of our citizens will become, the more convinced they will be to build their lives here and every good of one state can be passed on to the other and vice versa. Any social creativity on the one hand can be followed and find more power on the other.

Our people must move and work, their movement and residency must be facilitated; they want to produce, so business and trade opportunities need to be expanded for them. This work has started to move, but now we have to run, both in speed and quality.

Together we can produce better and earn more. There is no greater loss than projection in staying inside of the small consciousness, and there is no greater loss than scattering throughout unstable lines of action. Clarity and common orientation guides us to the most appropriate and successful movements.

We understand that the railway line Prishtina-Durrës is quality and speed in the circulation of people and goods, it is ecology and land power at sea; it is increasing the importance of the main port of Albanians. The railway connection is of economic as well as geopolitical importance which increases and strengthens the Albanians but also helps the region, because we live in our region and with our neighbors, with whom we have a common past, but we will also share the future.

The agreements we have ahead of us will further facilitate the procedures for obtaining a residence permit.

We are opening the new border crossing point in Krushevo in Dragash and Shishtavec, Kukës, to facilitate the circulation and to develop and connect our communities.

We are supporting cultural cooperation in the field of cultural heritage and museums, but also in creating a common annual cultural calendar because, as Fishta used to say, ‘It is true we have Eid and Easter, but Albanian we have together’ and many of our holidays are common.

We are increasing cooperation in the field of justice with mutual legal assistance, in the field of customs by facilitating the passage and reducing the waiting time and we are facilitating the mutual recognition of diplomas, certificates and scientific degrees with other agreements which bring us closer and strengthen us more.

And to make sure that the agreements will be implemented, we already have a joint coordinator, for which I thank the government of the Republic of Albania and Prime Minister Rama for the agreement and the support provided.

Let us accelerate the steps of action, increase the quality of implementation in order to accelerate the integration between our countries and in the European Union.

Thank you.

/u.sh/