TIRANA, March  7 /ATA/ Prime Minister Edi Rama expressed his gratitude that this year the Summit of the Berlin Process will be relocated to the region for the first time.

“I am really glad that Tirana has been chosen as the venue for this summit,” Rama told the joint press conference alongside the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Olaf Scholz in Berlin.

Rama said that “today we can also announce the date proposed by the German side, also accepted by us, which is October 16 of this year, where we will work together and where the Chancellor’s office will commit to accompanying the summit with an important business forum to bring together regional and German businesses.”

Prime Minister Rama said that “we believe that in Tirana we will be able to announce the final agreement for the opening of the European college of Bruges in Albania in the service of the entire region,” said Rama.

“I thank Chancellor Scholz for his hospitality and for his personal commitment, as well as for the will of the federal government to continue to support Albania and the Western Balkans in this period so important for us, so important for Europe itself. This will be a summit that will continue deepening the process along the way, will certainly focus on the track record of this process and definitely the objectives to grow further and strengthen cooperation in the region, which is the only path we have where we are lucky to have Germany as a fellow traveler which is mindful and directly involved.”

In his remarks Rama also noted that “we discussed some aspects of the economic, financial and social life in the Western Balkans, some important elements of the convergence of life in the EU and the necessity for the Western Balkans to take a step further in supporting the strengthening of the mechanisms that will make this convergence doable.”

Rama said that he discussed with Chancellor Scholz also the integration of Albania in the EU.

“We also talked about the integration process and its challenges, it is a process based on the individual merits of each country where we have a long way to go, we discussed how Germany can help us in mobilizing a lot of human resources in terms of support, but in all that machinery that must be set up in order to devise laws and by-laws to be adopted with the EU,” said Rama.

Prime Minister Rama added that “we also discussed the developments in the region. Albania, our government strongly supports the plan for peace and normalization between Kosovo and Serbia, in our view it is a very substantive and realistic plan, which brings about the necessary and long-awaited normalization and which both sides must treat not only with the utmost seriousness, but also with all the necessary courage.”

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