Dear colleagues,

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure for me to address this High Level Conference dedicated to Regional Cooperation and exchange with you some ideas on the current regional cooperation trends and challenges in our region.

I would like to thank both the RCC and the Baden-Wurtenberg representation to the EU and the European Funds for Balkans for gathering such a distinctive audience around very topical issues for our region.

In the past years the countries of the Western Balkans embarked in the EU accession track, which has in turn instigated intense political interaction and diplomatic consultation amongst ourselves, as means to consolidate a political culture based on exchange and cooperation.

In such a favorable context, during Albania’s Chairmanship of South-East Europe Cooperation Process (SEECP) we concentrated our efforts on how to:

• Strengthen the regional role of this organisation;
• Promote dialogue among participants as a tool to improve the functioning of the SEECP itself;
• Consolidate the sectorial relevance of our cooperation process.

These efforts might seem futile if one considers the impressive number of regional initiatives and formats floating around in our region. But it is our firm belief that we should aim at better quality and further outputs.

At this particular moment in time, the barriers of the past that hindered our cooperation seem to have diminished as much as interaction has increased.

But we cannot gain from the energy of intensified interaction if we build up more talking shops to discuss cooperation instead of practicing it.

In fact, the benefit of our citizens needs to become once more the main driver of the regional cooperation process.

This can be achieved by supporting the consolidation of a region which is not only a geographic notion but an area of inter-connected and therefore inter-dependent economies.

The Western Balkans can become that kind of inter-connected region, if two conditions are in place:

1. a credible and predictable EU perspective;

2. a proactive approach of our countries that identifies local needs for regional cooperation and solutions that originate from within the region.

The EU accession process has proven to be the most effective mobilizing factor to stabilize and reform the Western Balkans. If the region is at peace now it is largely because of the EU perspective.

By giving us a sense of common future, the EU enlargement process encourages the same spirit of regional cooperation that is at the very heart of the European project.

But I cannot help noticing a paradox between our common goal of full accession to the EU and the regional cooperation instruments at our disposal to achieve that goal:

Indeed it feels as if on the one hand we have set to ourselves hard goals and on the other we are only able to come up with soft instruments.

This means that as a region we must do more and better learn the gaps and discrepancies between our ambitions and our capacities.

If you compare GDP, Gross National Income (GNI) and the growth for annual exports for goods and services per capita, from 2003 to 2011, it is obvious that the Western Balkan countries have remained poorer compared not only to other EU member states but also to other Balkan countries that have since joined EU.

This means that our region is not only diverse in terms of economic development, but that the EU integration process still reflects realities of the past.

In other words the EU enlargement in the Western Balkans has not yet instigated the full economic & social transformation that comes with a development agenda.

This paradox between hard goals and soft instruments is particularly true if one sees our region from a geopolitical lens.

The European neighborhood is changing at an increasingly fast pace, with inevitable consequences on our region. The reappearing of the logic of spheres of influence has a potentially divisive effect on the Western Balkans. This is something that we must avoid.

That’s why we believe the European Union should pay closer attention to the geopolitical importance of the Western Balkans region, in order not to lose its role as the driving force for regional cooperation.

In this challenging geopolitical context, a credible and tangible EU perspective is crucial for keeping our countries on the path of Europeanization and cooperation.

Ladies and gentlemen,

EU integration and regional cooperation cannot be disentangled or substituted for one another.

At the same time, peace, stability and EU integration cannot be guaranteed in the long run without sustainable economic growth. This is why the countries of the region have been immediately embarked in the connectivity agenda of the EU.

Improving connectivity within the Western Balkan countries and between them and the European Union is a key factor for increasing competitiveness in the region and generate growth and jobs.

We strongly believe that the process that started in Berlin should be at the core of our common objectives.

This approach addresses jointly-defined ambitions that originate from within the region, as a precondition for a truly effective framework of EU and international support.

The agreement on the Core Network reached here in Brussels just two weeks ago is a leading example of how joint regional ambitions can be backed and amplified through collective commitment and leadership.

I take this opportunity to praise the role of the Commission and personally of Commissioner Hahn for his strong support and clear vision.

The infrastructure projects that were agreed under the Core Network methodology are important not only because they will interconnect the region economically and provide real benefits to our citizens from the processes of European integration and regional cooperation.

They are important also because they have the potential to strengthen people-to-people contacts and trust, which is the social capital for regional cooperation.

After all, the sense of belonging to a particular region is crucial for the development of any regional strategy.

We expect this trend be high on the European agenda of the next few months as we brace ourselves for a focused and productive Summit in Vienna in August of this year.

On this occasion, we welcome the attention that will be paid during the Vienna Western Balkans Summit to regional cooperation among civil society organizations. With that in mind Albania will prepare a few proposals on youth cooperation amongst the countries of the region.

The SEECP Chairmanship- in Office has offered Albania the possibility to dedicate its contribution in coordinating all the partners to keep the Berlin process alive, as an important achievement with positive implications on the entire region of Southeast Europe.

Opportunities to move forward in regional cooperation are plenty and exist, but we have to be practical, focused and all-inclusive.

I would like to express here once more the plea for the SEECP to act as a catalyst towards a more efficient regional cooperation setup.

The RCC can help us think of different formulas, in order to reduce the number of regional mechanisms that have become obsolete and reinforce those regional fora that bring considerable added value to our efforts towards full EU accession. Dear Goran we count on your help to achieve this and again congratulations for your second mandate as a Secretary General of RCC.

Thank you for the attention!