On the sidelines of the summit, PM Rama held a meeting with Pedro Sanchez. Writing in a post in the social media, PM Rama praised the Spanish leader’s wisdom and courage, highlighting the privilege of their close friendship.

The summit focused on strengthening democratic institutions and multilateralism while addressing digital regulation to combat disinformation and fighting inequality to reinforce democracy. /m.q/j.p/p.s./

PM Rama held a one-to-one meeting with PM Sánchez in the premier’s office. Further on, there was held an extended bilateral meeting of the two delegations.

Albania’s delegation is composed by Minister of Tourism and Environment Mirela Kumbaro, as well as some of the mayors of our country: Mayor of Durrës Emiriana Sako, Mayor of Lezha Pjerin Ndreu, Mayor of Gjirokastra Flamur Golemi and Mayor of Saranda Oltion Çaçi.

On Wednesday, PM Rama will participate in the opening of the International Tourism Fair “FITUR 24” which will be held by the King of Spain Felipe VI. There will be presented the rich touristic diversity of our country as a unique destination to be promoted and visited.

During participation in the fair, PM Rama will have the opportunity to meet with entrepreneurs and leaders of prestigious world companies, as well as representatives of the World Tourism Organization. /m.m/p.s./

After the meeting between the prime ministers and the respective government delegations, a bilateral agreement was signed on creation of a joint investigation team as part of the fight against international organized crime, using the police intelligence tools and investigation that both countries consider appropriate. The Prime Minister Edi Rama and the visiting Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez appeared then in a joint press conference.

PM Edi Rama: Hello everyone! It is with a very special pleasure that we welcome the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Spain in Tirana today, an expert on regional affairs and a good friend of Albania.

We are really grateful and I would like to publicly thank Pedro here today for Spain’s unsparing support for Albania’s European Union integration process, recalling the fact that Spain had adopted a somewhat more rigid position than other EU member states, being, in a way, more demanding and the fact that today Spain is fully supporting this process and has been one of the most outspoken stakeholders to open accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia, which is also confirmation of the very fact that we delivered through concrete results that received appreciation of everyone.

Albania has high expectations from Spain’s EU rotating Presidency in the first half of 2023, the opening of a season, which in our view is highly desired and appropriate for us as it starts with Spain and will continue with Belgium and Hungary. It is actually the trio that has successfully completed negotiations for Croatia’s EU accession, three countries with an absolutely clear unwavering pro-European position and, moreover, all three, even with this visit of the prime minister to our region, is intended to support the Western Balkans in a special way in this process of transformations and historical integration.

With the Prime  Minister we certainly focused on the region he is visiting, we discussed the regional initiatives, the ways how to integrate this process of regional initiatives, starting with the idea about a new European political community, and how to create fresh synergies, without definitely replacing and bypassing the individual process of each country as part of the EU enlargement, so that such synergies bring us faster and closer to the European institutions network, as we are already doing and as we are already reaping the initial benefits of our integration into the European Civil Emergencies system.

Furthermore, we have a lot to do with the energy sector and just as we are fully aligned and integrated when it comes to dealing with Russian aggression on Ukraine, we are seeking to be aligned and integrated when it comes to taking our universities in Albania and the region into a single network of European universities and so on.

We certainly talked about Kosovo. It is already known the fact that Spain has a different and traditionally unchanged position for Spain’s own reasons and that have nothing to do with any kind of discrimination or prejudice against Kosovo’s Albanian community and their right, but nevertheless, we discussed this issue, especially in the light of the most recent situation that escalated unreasonably late last night as the government of Kosovo has the right, and not only the right indeed but also the duty to implement agreements and exercise its territorial sovereignty and independence, stemming from an independence in the state’s administration. The agreements with the other party are there to be implemented and not to be questioned.

However, we welcome the Kosovo government decision to postpone implementation of this agreement for 30 days, something I already found out it was hailed also by the EU’s foreign policy chief, Mr, Borrell, something that was asked by the United States of America through its Ambassador in Prishtina, and I call on Belgrade authorities, President of Serbia to refrain from feeding certain groups in Kosovo north with any excuses or any alibis as such groups oppose implementation of an agreement that should not only be implemented, but also should be valuable to render more credibility to Kosovo-Serbia dialogue process.

We discussed the Open Balkan initiative and all the regional initiatives devised to support economic growth, free movement of people, goods and capital and we are looking forward to seeing this happen.

Spain is a model for renewable energy. Prime Minister Sanchez has been leading an incredible investment and transformation drive and we have a lot to learn in this respect. We share the same ambition with Spain to become a net energy exporter within a reasonable time.

Dear Prime Minister Pedro, thank you very much for the visit!

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The government head draw attention to the agreements with Spanish hospitality group Melia Hotels International and Iberostar on a series of investment projects in Albania’s hospitality and tourism industry, as well as the most recent energy agreement.

“Spain has set a model for the renewable energy in Europe. Prime Minister Sanchez has been leading an incredible investment and transformation drive and we have a lot to learn in this respect. We share same ambition with Spain to become a net energy exporter within a reasonable time,” PM Rama added.

The government head noted that Sanchez is the first Prime Minister of a EU member state to visit Albania after the country opened the EU accession negotiations last month.

“We are very happy with the Spain’s strong support for Albania’s EU integration process. I would like to remind everyone that Spain’s position was somehow a frozen one if compared to other EU countries as it was more demanding and the fact that Spain is now totally committed to support this process and has been one of most outspoken stakeholders supporting opening the accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia confirms the fact that we spoke through the concrete results and we received support from everyone,” Rama said.

The Premier said that Albania has high expectations as Spain will assume the EU’s rotating Presidency in 2023.

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