Ms Mimoza Kondo Director General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Albania Thank you very much Mr Chairman. It is a particular honour for me to participate today here in this very well-organised and important conference and in this discussion that focuses on the stabilisation and association process of the countries of South-Eastern Europe. We are convinced that this association and stabilisation process will become the framework for the intensification and deepening of co-operation among countries of the region. This co-operation, we think, has become an imperative today because first countries of the region face the same challenges in the way of reforming their countries. Many of the problems that they face today such as fight against organised crime, such as return of refugees, fighting illicit trafficking, ethnic issues, etc. are issues that can be resolved only by closely co-operating with each other. None of the countries in the region can achieve sustainable progress in the stabilisation and association process if the region will remain backward on its own. Secondly, inter-regional co-operation has become and is considered as a prerequisite as regards the integration into the European structures. Third, given this small economies and narrow markets that our countries of the region have, the increase of their trade exchanges will give a positive impact in their economic growth. Moreover this co-operation has more possibilities today to get deeper and strengthen than yesterday and that namely because nowadays with the end of the cold war many barriers such as military, economic, political, have been eliminated. The harsh ethnic conflicts and repeated wars that this last decade many times happened in the Balkans, made Europeans seek a solution for this region, for this so-called powder keg. And because it was really clear that the cost of military and humanitarian intervention would be higher than the cost of providing support for the stabilisation and development of this region. On the other hand today in the region do exist a lot of regional initiatives such as Central European Initiative, Adriatic Initiative, SEECP, SECI, where countries of the region come together and try to solve the problems they face. Contacts among countries of the region today have significantly increased and trade exchanges among them have also intensified. But I d like to stay a little bit longer in the efforts that Albania has been undertaking in order to enter this process, the process of stabilisation and association. Albania is a country with a European vacation and this is not only because of the 1
geographical point of view it has in the region. Not surprisingly at the beginning of the nineties when the democratisation processes began to take root in Albania the most wide-spread slogan was: We want Albania to be like Europe. This statement was unanimously uttered by the students of December, that began the changes in Albania, and also later they were uttered by the entire Albanian society. Not occasionally it has been and will remain for a long time one of the priorities of Albania s political, economic and civil activity. As often happens in our societies, in the political life of a country out of various pledges of the politicians which have been fulfilled or forgotten the dream of Albania to rejoin Europe, to which it belongs as I mentioned above, not only geographically but historically, culturally and spiritually, is becoming more tangible. Albania establishes first relations with EU in 1991. Since the beginning European Commission extended to Albania humanitarian aid which was further also additionally added by financial aid in building infrastructure, physical and institutional one. The most important event between the EU and Albania came a year later when Albania signed the Trade and Co-operation Agreement with EU and a political dialogue was established between them. It is worthy to mention should that Albania was the first South-Eastern European country to sign such agreement with the European Union, which was one of the most significant contracted documents of Albania in the last decade. In the same period Albania was also included in the General System of Preferences and in 1992 Albania was also included into the PHARE programme. In 1996 Albania was ready to sign a new high-level agreement with the EU which would open the path to the classical Association Agreement. But the political events that took place in the second half of 1996, followed by the collapse of pyramid system in the year 1997, generated a reconsideration of the European policy toward Albania. Further with the violent break-up of former Yugoslavia, the establishment of several new states in the European environment made European Union design a new form of relations with our countries and that was called regional approach. Based on it our countries should fulfil several parameters in order to strengthen the relations with the EU. Even though sincerely oriented to help strengthening of democracy in our country this policy was conceived with some misinterpretations even by Albania. Here belong the reservations that were expressed in a soft voice that this policy aims to discriminate South-Eastern Europe from the associated countries. Of course they originated from the fact that the level of regional relations for obvious reasons was lower and countries from the region wanted to be free to establish their relations with the EU without having some regional prerequisites that they could not control. As a matter of fact as it was noticed later the regional, political, economic and trade co-operation would become one of the most important elements in the evaluation 2
of the relations between EU and our countries, and one of the most important elements of the stabilisation and association process. The new reality after the international intervention in Kosovo, the draft and implementation of the Stability Pact for South-eastern Europe have completely transformed this idea of regional cooperation, changing it from a hesitation into a synergy for development. Tragic developments in Kosovo and international interventions traumatised the system of international relations and increased the pressure on the EU to find new ways and forms to speed up the integration of our countries into Europe, and this is what generated the adoption of the new initiative, the so called stabilisation and association process. Now the path is opened to our countries which are acquainted with all the requirements and rules of the game to be successful participants. It is up to us, including my country, to determine the time and pace of their integration into the EU. This is a historic chance that Albania won t want to lose, and which makes up the absolute priority of the government of Albania. I would like to mention some of the challenges that we face today in order to enter and to make this process a success. Taking into consideration the aims of this process we can affirm that challenges that make this process a success are also the challenges that concern the normal development of our country. First, interior and institutional co-ordination. It is important the improvement on interior co-ordination schemes in the implementation of co-operation programs especially with the EU. The existence of problems in the achievement of good institutional co-ordination is not an Albanian phenomenon. Even in developed countries, with a consolidated administration dysfunctioning problems would emerge. But what makes Albania more distinguished is the fact that during the development of the last ten years is noticed the lack of a clear idea on the stability of institutional development. Secondly, efficiency and stability of civil administration and relevant structures. Important steps are made in the legal institutionalisation of the building and functioning of civil administration. This is an important long-term investment but at the same time it is one of the aspects where EU has invested most in Albania. The opening of the country, the right to move freely, the great attraction to western image, the great opportunities of fair competitiveness as well as non-neglected international presence in Albania with the great power of attraction and absorption have generated the immigration of a vital part of Albanian intelligence whose lack has considerably drained civil administration in Albania. Also the political changes in Albania during the last decade are manifested in the Albanian central and local administration. The adoption 3
of the law on public service very recently has laid the basis for the establishment of a stable and professional administration. Third, the harmonisation of requirements of domestic product development in conformity with the commitments that offers a free-trade area. The association, of course, requires deepening of partnership, greater extension of co-operation in several fields including trade. Albania and the EU have no interest in reducing the domestic product. Trade economy should become more competitive, what is one of the basic norm of European unique trade. At the moment Albania s trade balance is still negative with an increasing volume of imports. At present the imports are converted also in valuable incomes for the state budget, which for the time being are difficult to be replaced. However, this data should neither be exaggerated, nor underestimated. Nevertheless, the Albanian government is aware of the importance that the establishment of the free-trade areas represent for stabilisation and association process. The political will exists and the working group is creative for evaluating the economic impact as a result of reducing the customs tariffs. The negotiations have already began with Macedonia. On the other hand the EU is offering countries of the region more opportunities. The trade regime that EU offered to countries of the region, one of which is Albania in October 1999, and this liberalisation was even broadened recently in September 2000 with the initiative of Commissioner Patton and according to this Directive over 90% of the industrial and agro-industrial products are included in the free export regime. This new regime is applied for the products coming from Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia, Croatia, excluding some kinds of products such as wine, beef and some kind of fish. Montenegro and Kosovo are also included in this regime but under a specific treatment. However, there is still room for the EU to be more generous in the case of Albania. Fish industry is of special importance, taking into consideration the great potential of Albania in this field and the minimal exploitation of this cultivation. In November 1999 the EU approved the feasibility study for Albania which was also approved by the Council of Ministers at the beginning of this year. In the reply to the conclusion of this study in March 2000 the Albanian government drafted and submitted to the European Commission and the European Council Status report which depicts a schedule of the measures to be undertaken by the Albanian government during the year 2000 to prepare the ground for opening the negotiations for this new agreement. During this time the Albanian government and the European Commission have observed the developments in Albania, especially in the optics of this Status report implementation. The meeting of Albanian and European Union joined committee held in Tirana in June this year commended the Albanian government of the measures taken and encouraged it to proceed this way as the best way towards the opening of 4
negotiation for stabilisation and association agreement. The general situation in Albania, the trend of the political and economic developments and the microeconomic indicators have created a situation of stability and constant developments. The year 2000 was considered the best one in this last decade. GDP grew at 8 % and is foreseen to continue in the same level for the year 2001. Slight increase of inflation was noticed at three percent, overall budget deficit is 8,75 % of the GDP. Privatisation in all sectors is running well and also the reform in customs administration. Public order and security have strengthened. Local elections run at the beginnings of October that went smoothly and peacefully. All these have established the ground that enables the preparation for the opening of negotiation for the new agreement. Albania sees this opening of negotiation and the process as a whole not as a moment, but as a process in which the opening negotiations for the new agreement is the first step and perhaps the easiest one. Following above mentioned and pursuant to the conclusions of the EU Feasibility study and to the measures and commitment undertaken until now by Albania in the Status report, which I very briefly posed to you, have established the grounds to start the necessary procedures that mark the beginning of the concrete opening of negotiations. Given the importance the Albanian government is attaching to the Zagreb summit that is going to be held in Croatia by the 24-th of November we are looking forward to it to have a clear message for the further development of relations between Albania and the EU. There is no doubt that the establishment of new contractual relationship between Albania and the EU will be a very important event in the further development and strengthening of relations between Albania and the EU and will have also a very good impact in the stability of the region. I would like to conclude my speech recalling what was said at the beginning of this conference by Mr Kuehnhardt that Europe cannot be united without having on board all countries Western, Balkan countries, even the slowest one. Thank you for the attention. 5