Salla said the meeting provided an opportunity to discuss proposed changes to the scheme, priority sectors and how state support can better respond to the needs of farmers on the ground.

According to the Agriculture Minister, consultations with farmers are a key step in shaping fairer and more effective policies aligned with European Union standards.

“The ministry’s goal is to design a scheme with equal rules for all beneficiaries, aligned with EU agricultural policies, ensuring fair payments and increasing the competitiveness of the agricultural sector,” Salla said.

About 62,000 farmers nationwide have benefited from the National Agricultural Support Scheme to date.

The programme provides support for registered core livestock herds (cattle and small ruminants), beekeeping, seeds, seedlings and other agricultural inputs, medicinal and aromatic plants, organic farms, GlobalG.A.P. certification, as well as fuel subsidies for mechanised agricultural operations.

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Ensembles from Çamëria to Presheva, Tetova to Tuz, Plave and Guci performed at the festival’s 22^nd edition in the northern town of Bajram Curri.

Folk music groups from Tropoja, Vlora, Mallkaster, Dibra e Madhe, Çamëria, Gjakova, State Ensemble of North Macedonia, paraded along main thoroughfare of Bajram Curri ahead of the festival.

Mayor Rexh Biberaj said in his remarks at the event that Tropoja will continue honouring its commitment to further improving elite tourism, which is constantly growing each year.

“Sofra Dardane” Festival heralds the start of the tourist season in Valbona.

Valbona National Park  and the Valbona river valley, the gem of Albanian Alps – Accursed Mountains, is a top tourist destination in Albania’s north attracting an increasing number of local and foreign visitors and sightseers.

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“It is important to realize that the election victory comes with huge responsibility and there is no room for complacency. I considered almost mission impossible wining in Kukes and Tropoje. However, public poll findings started to suggest an upward trend of the Socialist Party in March and April,” PM Rama said at a meeting as part of a nationwide tour to thank voters for giving his ruling Socialist Party a stunning victory in May 14 mayoral elections..

The government head said that SP victory in local election was a convincing victory.

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Thank you for attending and your presence! I have visited Tropoja on regularly basis and I can openly state that I fell really encouraged by the obvious and tangible changes and, most importantly, I am encouraged by the fact that something I felt while on my way here was confirmed by the Mayor, namely the continued increase in the number of newly-built structures, investments in building new houses, villas indeed, a fact showing that people feel that things are changing and the area’s tremendous potential has started to become more tangible and more obvious as an opportunity for development.

On the other hand, I am also encouraged by the fact that as many as 150, 000 local and international tourists and sightseers have visited Tropoja this year.

You know it much better than I do what local government and local authorities have already accomplished, the projects they have delivered on, and what the municipality should do better, just like you know better what the central government should still do about this area, but I would try to briefly comment on the current overall situation, as we are all through a fragile moment that has to do with the lives of everyone of us and has to do with the fact that we now are part of a community of nations and countries involved in an Alliance, against which a war has been already waged on. The war in Ukraine is not simply targeting Ukraine only and the Kremlin’s project is not just to annex certain parts of Eastern Ukraine, but through aggression on Ukraine, the Kremlin is seeking to bring the whole West to its knees, namely all the countries within this Alliance we definitely belong to. Indeed, the crisis was a warning of what was about to ensue and the crisis has now gripped whole Europe, where the energy prices have skyrocketed and at the very onset of the crisis we decided to place a financial shield to defend all the households and small businesses so that they are not affected by the rising energy prices.

As a result, the electricity bills forwarded to your homes contain the pre-crisis rates, paying just 20% of the true electricity price, whereas 80% of the electricity bill of each of you is paid by the state through its budget under the government decision to protect the household consumers.

This is also the case with the small businesses that pay the pre-crisis electricity rates and the difference of the real price is again covered by the state budget. The cost of this financial shield for the families and the small businesses is estimated at around EUR 450 million.

However, by deciding to protect small businesses, we have actually defended consumers as the electricity price is not reflected on the bills of the everyday food products and other items people buy in shops. So, the war-driven inflation, which is unavoidable, stands at a lower rate in Albania as compared to other countries in the region and we are seeking to keep inflation at a lower rate compared to other countries in the region by continuing to compensate the electricity price.

Albania has yet to generate enough electricity to meet its domestic demand. Current generation capacities, hydropower plants in Albania meet only 75% of consumption when they are working at full capacity during the period with abundant rains, whereas the 25% of the demand is met through imports.

When the rain is scarce, the electricity imports grow. It is for this reason that we are seeking to diversify and increase the number of energy generation sources with the new photovoltaic park already being built in the area of Karavasta, whereas construction of another large photovoltaic park in the area of Spitalle will kick off soon after all the procedures have already completed;  the wind power projects we have launched with the European Bank; the Skavica hydropower plant, which is being built by the American company; the liquefied natural gas terminal in Vlora and so on and so forth. All these projects will undergo two development stages and we will fully meet the domestic demand for electricity by 2025, given that abundant rain falls. In the scenario of insufficient rainfall, we will be able to develop full generation capacities by 2029. By then Albania will be a totally sovereign country in terms of energy and will face no problems and will have nothing to do with the international energy markets. By then Albania will no longer be forced to purchase electricity, and instead the country will actually sell electricity, after having met its national demand. This is a major ambitious project we are working on and will keep working until we fully deliver.

Under such conditions, we face yet another problem. We have a public environment with Kremlin having its own representatives and this is really a serious problem, because given these conditions it is out of question that we all come together in a single party, and not everyone agrees on the way how the government, the ruling political party addresses the problems, because debate can be held on these issues and they are all legitimate debates.

The matter is that we are being hampered  and by us I don’t mean the government, but we as a country are being hindered by a political group now turned into an alliance unwilling to formally cooperate and agree on the fact that we are under the pressure of a war from a hostile aggression, not simply against a nation that is geographically far away and that is unfortunately being bombed, but it is a war against us, our community, against our belongingness to this community, against our being part of a strategic alliance with the United States of America and the European Union and, at this point, no discussion on the veracity can take place, at this point our public environment cannot be split into those speaking with the language of Europe and those speaking with the Kremlin’s rhetoric.

When a big power like Russia injects and allocates money for a political party, that country certainly does so to recruit as its servant and have that party under its influence. This is universally known and Russians do this everywhere.

In the meantime, one should wonder what would possibly force our strategic ally, the United States of America, to designate persona non-grata someone who used to serve as the President of this country and with whom the U.S. has cooperated; someone who  has served as the Prime Minister of this country and with whom the U.S. has cooperated?

Is corruption enough to declare persona non-grata a personality of an allied country? Undermining democracy? How? Justice intimidation!

So, my friends, I am saying that in the light of what is happening today, one should fully read the attitude of the United States and in the light of what is happening we should also recall the 2021 electoral campaign, when I urged former opposition leader Lulzim Basha to distance from the duo.

What does Putin want? Putin wants to cause unrest in the NATO member countries. What are they trying to do? They are precisely seeking to cause unrest? Unrest! Unrest! Because the elections are set to take place in May.

Thank you very much!

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Hello everyone,

It is a special pleasure for me to revisit this very significant business facility, which, I believe, is also quite a meaningful enterprise for everyone wishing to see and understand how an operational and profitable enterprise can be launched and develop in a region or in an area where such an idea used to sound really a utopia just a few years ago. This is actually happening and we certainly wish a lot more than this happens all over the country, but the process of shifting attention towards the country’s regions, which have been characterized by an image and a distance of impossibility over the years since the fall of the communist regime, isn’t actually an easy process.

On the other hand, I am actually glad that, just like everywhere else, the Urban Renaissance programme, which initially focused on delivering projects in the urban area of the town, has actually also transformed some of the neuralgic points of Tropoja’s rehabilitation and has paved the way towards development of local tourism that used to merely be a desire considering the area’s nature wonders, but by no contribution of whatsoever from the central Tirana government for the Tropoja region. And I am very pleased that although we haven’t been often voted in by residents in this area, we have done more than all other previous governments combined.

We have delivered on projects and investments that have not just altered the atmosphere and the colours, the town’s attractive power alongside all the attractive areas, but, above all, such investment projects have cleared the way to all these events in the past few years, which are really important investment events. The investment projects in the Valbona Valley, in various attractions and taking notice of the fact that as many as 150,000 foreign and local tourists visited Tropoja this year, this is a very significant accomplishment. Of course our ambition and target is for these tourists to stay longer in these areas and to this end we need to do a lot more work, we need to do a lot more efforts, more investments, and I mean not only public investments, but also private investment projects.

To go back to what the Mayor said, we have also addressed the property ownership issue for over 2700 hectares -if I am not mistaken – of the chestnuts forest have been transformed to the municipality so that it can identify and arrange distribution of this whole area according to the agreements already reached in the territory, because the problem with the chestnut forest and other similar lad areas, mostly in Albania’s north, but also in certain areas in south, although rarely, is that the properties have not been returned and are currently in use by local residents, who haven’t accepted the Law No. 7501, yet they have agreed peacefully to distribute the land area according to the old land borders and therefore no potential conflicts are imminent. Almost all of them have agreed to use the old borders of the land they inherit from their ancestors and the land distribution has taken place based on understanding among local residents. Of course, sporadic disagreements are encountered in certain areas and the government doesn’t intervene, but instead local government authorities have been tasked with addressing this process. It is up to the municipal authorities to set up a working group to tackle each case gradually and deliver the property ownership certificates to the people according to the agreement on the land use.

On the other hand, it is very important that we also promote some positive examples, which are actual facts, and not desires, they are not plans or projects, but actual facts.

There is a lot of good news in Tropoja indeed and these news are a product of people, local people residing here, local people working here, people who struggle and face hardship, still they succeed and generate income for their families. But news is inexistent, especially for those already on the path of common rural development. The media stories are just discouraging; they are just poisonous, misinforming.  It is just one side of the coin. Of course, there are still many problems in Albania.  Of course, a farmer, whose production hasn’t been sold, is not an actor and he is not acting when appearing on the TV news stories. On the contrary, such farmers are real people and the problem is very real. However, this is just the half truth. The other half truth is that just on the other side of the road, exactly where the camera doesn’t record, are other farmers who have joined forces to work, produce and export together and therefore earn a lot. And as such, the first half truth becomes a big lie and is used to discourage people. Why? This is done just for a simple reason, because the owner of that TV channel is seeking to blackmail the government, is trying to blackmail this or that cabinet member.

The people visiting this area just six, seven or eight years ago and not 100 years ago, were mostly local residents, who work  and reside here, or people who return back to their homes, after having left for several years. But having thousands of people visiting this area for pleasure and tourism purposes was actually unimaginable and that’s why those products were the products of extreme subsistence, if not just the fruits of a passion for work.

A typical stone house in Tropoja nestled amid a stunning landscape and natural wonders, combined with the local products and very generous Tropoja men and women one can find nowhere else around the world, just like it is the case with the traditional homes in Gjirokaster, Permet and elsewhere across Albania, by employing a modest investment can be transformed into a very profitable agritourism business, which doesn’t actually need quick access to the market to transport your locally grown agricultural produce, because this  is a business, whose product is hospitality, good and healthy food, nature and the architecture of a traditional house.

Agritourism businesses are being launched here and all over Albania steadily. The number of people realizing this has increased and many of them have already launched successful agritourism businesses. Together with the Agricultural and Rural Minister, Frida Krifca, we have visited agritourism facilities in areas across the country, where no opportunities and other sources of income exist or in areas where it is impossible for you to think about cultivating the land and transport the product to bigger urban markets, because transport would cost you more than the product itself or such a product doesn’t meet the standards to be exported.

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Nestled amid a very favourable geographical position overlooking whole scenic greenery of Gjakova highland, the picturesque landscape, the freshness of the mountains, water from glacial springs amid nightingales’ songs under the golden sunshine, the guesthouse welcomes visitors 360 days a year.

Prime Minister Edi Rama posted a gallery of pictures showing the guesthouse, which has been highly-rated with an excellent score of 9.7 points by booking.com.

“Overlooking the canopy of chestnut trees in Tropoje, after which it has been named Chestnut Hill, this beautiful guesthouse located just 10 km from the town of Bajram Curri, at an elevation of 1000 meters in the neighbourhood Velisht of the village of Geghysen, offers a stunning view and a menu blending traditional delicacies with international dishes with 100% locally grown organic produce. Highly-rated with a score of 9.7 points by booking.com, the facility welcomes visitors 360 days a year,” PM Rama said.

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Mayor Byberi presented the Head of the EU Delegation to Albania, Ambassador Luigi Soreca, with the “Gratitude of Tropoja” award for his contribution towards supporting Albania’s efforts to deliver on EU standards and the special interest he has shown for the region of Tropoja.

EU Ambassador Luigi Soreca, Austrian Ambassador Christian Steiner and French Ambassador Elisabeth Barsacq were extended a warm welcome also by the children at Ali Podrimja school. They had prepared an artistic programme and shared their wishes and concerns.

The visit to Bajram Curri ended with delicious traditional food prepared by the women involved in the WIN project.

The EU ambassadors also travelled to the town of Has, north-eastern region of Kukes.

EU Ambassador Soreca, accompanied by the Austrian Ambassador Christian Steiner, met local Mayor and later addressed the citizens, especially the youth of Has. The evening continued with the screening of the German movie “Too Far Away.”

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“If there is a region to which Sali Berisha owes a lot that region is definitely Tropoja, as he granted 11 permits to construct 11 hydropower plants on Valbona River that we cancelled,” he said.

He said that previous government has done nothing for the remote northern region of Tropoja,

“I have had the honor to do a lot for Tropoja. The former Mayor, who represented the Democratic Party, came to meet, saying he had a prepared a series of projects for Tropoja and I was honoured to help that such projects were implemented,” Rama said.

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