Dear colleagues and friends,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome to Tirana and thank you for being here. I would like to thank our guests who have shown their support and solidarity for the South East Europe Cooperation Process (SEECP) and our joint efforts throughout the last year.

The Albanian SEECP Chairmanship in Office is coming to an end, and we are proud and happy to have had the opportunity to lead such an important forum for our region.

In this regard I would like to express my gratitude to all participants, the SEECP Troika and to the RCC, for their cooperation, solidarity and constant support.

Our Chairmanship has been guided by the principles of the SEECP Charter while aiming at a more dynamic cooperation process in South-East Europe.

Furthermore, we have successfully increased cooperation with the civil society and the academia and assisted in bringing closer networks of excellence in our region.

We drafted an ambitious calendar, with the view to strengthen cooperation between our countries in several priority areas, including:

• Good governance and anti-corruption,
• Infrastructure and Energy
• Statistics,
• Justice and Home Affairs, to name only a few

In the security area, we are happy to say that SEECP has demonstrated solidarity with the international community by endorsing the special Declaration on combating international terrorism, in the ministerial meeting in Tirana, on 24 February 2015.

Yet, more can be done to increase our joint efforts.

In the capacity of C-i-O of SEECP in 2014-2015, and in line with its foreign policy agenda, Albania has continued to promote peace and stability in the region.

However, neither peace nor stability should be taken for granted; they need to be sustained through our continuous efforts and concrete action, and above all our unwavering commitment to overcome bilateral disputes inherited from the past of the past and build better futures for our youth.

The enhancement of SEECP’s efficiency has been at the very core of our chairmanship.

We effectively led the reform process of the SEECP with a clear goal: to strengthen the internal structures of our regional political forum, so as to be able to meet the present challenges and those of the future.

By endorsing the Conclusions today, we will give a positive and comprehensive signal of our common political will to empower our collective mechanisms, reinforce regional ownership in an all-inclusive spirit.

We remain hopeful that this trend will continue during the upcoming Bulgarian Chairmanship.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In the spirit of good neighborly relations and of strengthening peace and stability in our region, we should tackle any kind of phenomena and practices, which seek to distort our regional acquis.

Recent events in Kumanovo demonstrated that more must be done to enforce democratic institutions, to resolve internal political disputes through democratic means and to invest our energies into the safety and security of the lives of people and their property.

We are all too well aware that the security of each and every country is inseparable from the collective security of our region.

In this context, better communication and information sharing with regard to security issues is in our interest.

We have requested, and will continue to do so, that the events in Kumanovo be fully investigated.

The sooner this is done, the less chance is given to misperceptions to gain terrain and lead to de-stabilization.

It is against this background that the countries of the Western Balkans in particular, must intensify their joint efforts within the framework of the Berlin Process.

We are confident that this process will open new perspectives for the WB to better connect with each other and with the EU, improve their infrastructure, energize their economies and strengthen their human capital.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The decision of 27 June 2014 to grant Albania the EU candidate status proved to be a catalyzer for further resolute efforts in our country’s reform process.

The Albanian government has shown concrete action and sustained political will in the area of EU-related reforms.

Albania has delivered on a comprehensive set of reforms related to the rule of law, including continued implementation of anti-corruption policy, fight against organised crime and the reform of the judiciary.

We are confident that the continued implementation of key reforms in the areas under the five key priorities will constitute a solid basis for the next steps ahead of us.

As far as our regional cooperation is concerned, Albania has shown throughout the past year it can be both a dynamic and constructive player in the Western Balkans.

Also, Albania has been consistent in aligning our positions with all relevant CSDP declarations and Council decisions (100% alignment).

We are glad that the Connectivity agenda is now an integral part of the Accession process and not a substitute to a stalled accession process that is neither in the interest of the EU nor of the Western Balkans.

 

Recent events in our region have demonstrated the risks of a stalled EU integration process.

In such a challenging geo-political context, the EU must send a strong political signal for the reform process and the reform-minded political forces in our region.

It is of crucial importance that the reforms which most of our countries are going through are understood by our citizens.

It is equally important that the enthusiasm of our citizens, and particularly of young people, for change, for building prosperous, more just and more secure societies is sustained and their efforts in meeting the challenges of reforms is rewarded both by us, and the EU.

It is against this background that we have fully embraced the inclusion of the civil society and youth cooperation component into the Berlin process.

In this context, I am happy to announce that the Minister of the Countries of the Western Balkans, have agreed today on a joint framework on youth cooperation.

Our goal is now to set up regional youth mechanisms with relevant financial backing, hopefully with the help of the EU, which can be endorsed by the August Conference in Vienna.

Dear participants,

The SEECP calendar will continue tomorrow with the first all-inclusive regular meeting of SEECP Parliamentary Assembly, from which we expect important decisions, on closer cooperation between the parliaments of the region.

I would like to express here my appreciation for the work of our operational arm, the RCC, and for the excellent collaboration we had throughout our C-i-O.

The intensive political consultations with RCC and the constant cooperation on expert level have proved to be successful.

Allow me now to congratulate our Bulgarian friends for their upcoming chairmanship. Albania is ready to support and assist you in this endeavor.

Thank you!