Dear Karin, dear Maria, dear colleagues,

I am honoured to host for the first time in Tirana this regional meeting on cooperation and mutual support on our EU path, and I thank the Austrian EU Presidency for this initiative, GIZ and the German government for their support.I am happy to co-chair this conference with my colleague, Karin whose presence today is a clear demonstration of Austria’s engagement in the region.I would like to thank her for catching up and the Austrian presidency and for focusing on the EU perspective of our region.

EU membership is a top political priority for all the countries in the region. While at different stages in the accession process, we face many common challenges. The progress of each of us affects the others and in this context I welcome the vote of the citizens of Macedonia in support of the agreement with Greece and express my hope that constitutional changes based on the Prespa Agreement will pave the way for our good neighbour’s NATO and EU accession. At the same time the referendum demonstrated the urgent need to strengthen the credibility of the EU perspective and consequently the EU leverage in our region.

Both our countries have an important rendez-vous with our European perspective and our future in June next year.

In Albania, we are sparing no effort to use this time, so that next June finds the country in a solid position with regard to fulfilling the obligations related to this stage of the accession process.

The deep and comprehensive reform in the justice system has marked a new beginning in the reform process as a whole, particularly in the areas of the fight against corruption and organized crime, and the strengthening of fundamental rights.

Parallel to our discussion here there are two high level discussions on the most important areas related to EU reform agenda: the justice reform and fight against organized crime and corruption.

We believe that consolidating rule of law is a transformative process which involves not just institutions, judges and politicians, but also the society at large.

We are trying to further build on our broad political consensus on EU integration and to pursue the reform agenda in a spirit of compromise. The path is not easy, as the resistance to the justice reform clearly shows, but our determination remains unwavering.

In this context, the role of all political parties, the Parliament, and the civil society is indispensable. Building consensus on our EU perspective is particularly important in these critical times, when populism and nationalism are on the rise and the Europeanist forces are in decline across the Europe, the new and the old.

Any lack of credible perspective risks creating a vacuum that can be filled by populist nationalism, authoritarianism, illiberal policies that exploit lack of perspective, social insecurities and economic disparities.

It’s both in our interest and in the interest of our European partners that this work is guided and monitored in the framework of the accession negotiations’ benchmarks.

• In this context, the start of screening procedures last week, gives a new impetus to this process.
• Through the calendar of the explanatory screening meetings until September 2019, the familiarization with EU legislation will make the criteria that need to be fulfilled clearer and more concrete.
• The preparation of Action Plans based on screening and the benchmarks will guide further progress of reforms in the country.
• The explanatory meetings with the Commission will help us move forward in this process, in a more structured manner.
• In this phase, the setting up of coordination structures for the process of negotiations alongside the fulfilment of recommendations of the Council ‘s conclusions of June, are the priority for our agenda for the next few months.
• In this process we are closely working with a number of countries of the region, both member states and negotiating countries, with a view to avoid their mistakes and replicate their successes in our own specific institutional setting.
• We must replicate the interaction between our public administrations, civil servants and experts to the political level and have stronger synergies between the political and the technical sides of the same transformative EU accession process.

We in the region do not need to compete with each other, neither need we compare with each other: instead, we must compare ourselves to the EU standards.

We are aware that each country moves at its own speed on its path to EU accession, in accordance with its capacity, the pace of reforms, and consistency in delivering on its commitments. But the process has also an important regional dimension.

Regional cooperation is a crucial element of our EU accession process. Albania has played a critical role in forging regional cooperation through different initiatives, such as by setting the Regional Youth Cooperation Office in Tirana, and by working closely on bilateral basis through G2G platforms, with each neighbouring country in the region to improve connectivity.

Over the last few years, we have significantly strengthened our cooperation in relation to economic and social development, infrastructure, energy, justice, security, youth and civil society.

Nonetheless, in relation to coordinating and steering the EU accession process, there is room to improve the capacities of the relevant authorities to engage in regional learning activities, as well as to implement good practice from the region in our respective national systems.

We must pledge to remove all political obstacles in the way of improving connectivity, mobility and living standards for our citizens.

I believe there is also room for further strengthening our joint efforts in communicating our region’s achievements. Perceptions of our region are very often biased, twenty years after the Bulgarian historian Maria Todorova’s book “Imagining the Balkans”.

The Balkans remains in the European imaginary as a place of crime and corruption, inter-ethnic relations, and bloody conflicts stemming from the 19th century. As it happens with dominant images, we in the Western Balkans have often internalized this image of ourselves and behave accordingly. But it is time that we need to change all this:

What is happening in our countries, some more than others is transformative, new and at times, quite brave. I have in mind here the judiciary reform and the relentless efforts to establish a new judiciary architecture in the country.

But in order for entrenched perceptions to change, we need to communicate better our progress. At the same time, we must communicate between to our own citizens what the process of EU integration entails, what awaits them and what benefits them: students, businesses, farmers, workers, all citizens.

Regional co-operation and the involvement of civil society in the enlargement process are as important as achievements on the ground. The quality of our communication can make an important difference.

It is extremely helpful that we learn from the experience of Croatia and Bulgaria in this respect, but it is equally important that we create regional synergies. The tremendous progress we have made on regional cooperation, thanks to the accession perspective and as a contribution to stability in Europe, will be effectively communicated if we do this jointly. The same applies to our contribution to European stability in relation to migration and to the fight against terrorism.

This is the inaugural meeting of a structured cooperation between our countries in relation to EU accession. Cooperation at working level has already made progress through the networks of EU offices and MFAs, supported by the GIZ, to whom I express sincere appreciation. From now on, we will meet regularly at the ministerial level to provide political guidance to a strengthened cooperation between our institutions.

Thank you.