The Prime Minister Rama participated today in the high-level plenary session of the Prespa Forum Dialogue taking place in Ohrid, North Macedonia.

In his remarks the Prime Minister Rama stressed that,“we can work together in the region, we can push together for making things better, for raising our economies, for creating bigger spaces, for our entrepreneurs, for our young people, because alone and staying, let’s say, with the back turned towards region, we are too small.”

“But, together we are reasonably big, and, thanks God on the one hand, Europe can not tell us what to do in this region, second, on the other hand, we can, by our actions, ease the life for our people. Why we will have to wait to be member states, to make the trade in the region flow with no barriers, waiting for thousand years, in a year as the World Bank stated statistically in tracks? Why we need to wait for the EU, to be part of EU, to have free movement of people without the ID cards, to have free flow of goods, services and capital, to have one stop in the borders for everyone, to transform the borders in practically completely fluid for people?” the premier Rama underlined.

“So we need to keep going in this direction, of course even in the other direction we have to keep going, by making the reforms, by making the improvements, by fulfilling the standards, every year but, it doesn’t depend on us, this depends on us, it’s all in our hands and we should do it. It’s absolutely absurd to have people from these countries face difficulties in crossing, it’s absolutely short-sighted to think that big investments will come to our countries alone. It will not happen. It’s absolutely absurd to imagine a future where our green agenda, our energy, policies and strategies are not fully interconnected, “ the Prime Minister Rama added.

“In that, I find a very challenging, a very exciting path. And Albania will push all the way to make it easier for everyone in Albania, to go everywhere in the region, with no limits, and to open for everyone in the region to come to Albania with no limits, simple. People from North Macedonia want to come to the beach, you have a lake but you don’t have a beach, so what does it mean, you have to wait, to get to our beach, in that no one wins. If you wait ours you will spend money in the borders, in your side of border, you want to spend the money in our side of border, so to come faster and this goes for all the aspects of life,” the premier Rama said. //a.i./

“Because frankly this affects our objectives and bottom line too. These delays have weakened our collective US and EU influencer and their ability to advance shared goals in the region, including not just the normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo, and constitutional and EU-related reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but broader region issues as well,” he stated.

“The United States applauds a recent European Commission’s agreement on the pre-accession assistance, which will finance much of the EU economic investment plan. I would like to recall here what the German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas recently said: ‘It is critical that the EU stands by its commitments to the region.’ This includes advancing the accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania, and delivering visa liberalization with Kosovo,” Palmer added.

“Our long-standing vision for the region is a region at peace with itself, at peace with its neighbours, stable, prosperous and integrated into the European and Euro-Atlantic framework. What gives me hope is that this is not just the US vision for the Western Balkans, but it is nearly indistinguishable from what our European allies and partners also want. Even more important is that this vision is also the vision explicitly articulated by the countries in the Western Balkans themselves,” Palmer said.

“The region’s leaders must take firm ownership of the European future and generate the internal pressure needed to not only achieve collective progress in the near term, but actively reverse the slide into a transnational hybrid regime territory. Otherwise, the regional economic cooperation and the sustainable long-term economic recovery will remain perpetually out of reach. As part of this, the leader of the region must create and seize opportunities now to resolve through dialogue and compromise differences that hold back their countries and people from achieving their full potentials. Unless it is inclusive, these can only remain half measures,” the US senior official stated.

“To this end, the United States is urging Kosovo to approach its neighbours with a positive spirit and urges Kosovo’s neighbours to engage Kosovo in the same way. With equal importance, the US is urging Serbia to make a political commitment to the entire region’s economic development,” he added.

/ /ush/ a.jor.