Free trade, next step for Balkans

The leaders of six Western Balkan countries gather in Trieste, Italy, on Wednesday, on the occasion of the annual conference of the Berlin Process. It will be an opportunity not only to discuss the path to integration into the European Union but also to close the wounds of the past to become together about an idea and, more important, to create a platform for economic growth. Among other things, we will be asked to support, the creation of a regional economic zone. I'll argue with her.

After decades of autism, Albania and its neighbours have suffered in the last two decades exactly the opposite. This involves war, strife, chaos, and others. Corruption, nepotism, clientlitism, has also come with them as various political factions fight for power only “plactur” wealth.

Albanians demand that they end this once and for all. That's the message voters gave us in the elections that were held a month ago. After four years in a coalition with a smaller partner, my party campaigned to have a powerful mandate to clean up our house and win, as rarely, the parliamentary majority. Albanians supported our plan for statehood and institutional reforms, plans that will eventually depoliticise governance and reward the afflictions of ordinary people.

So we hope to gain stability for our country and thus, we hope that together we will continue to move towards full membership in the European Union. The decision to open negotiations within this year is possible, after we have fulfilled our commitment to reform courts and the justice system, as well as to strengthen the rule of law.

However, economic factors also feel in this situation. Albanians and our neighbours in the Western Balkans have suffered years of lack of stability, in part because of low economic development. We have corrupt judges and prosecutors because they want their share of the calls. The corrupt politicians have taken us for exactly the same reason.

When the best way to create influence is politics, instead of personal initiative and entrepreneurship, conflicts are inevitable. They may take different forms, ethnic nationalism in some cases, religious sectarianism in others or ideological divisions elsewhere. But when the resources are scarce, you always end up with who you know instead of what you can do.

So this is also Albania's future priority. While we will continue to modernise and democratise our governance, we will also set the stage for greater economic development.

That is why this week, in Italy, I will strongly support the creation of the regional economic zone, as a cornerstone that will facilitate our membership process in the European Union.

There are some doubts about this plan. Some of my Western Balkan colleagues fear the idea that this regional economic zone could be a dead end, a station in which Brussels will abandon us. Several member states and several European leaders, in fact, have expressed reluctance to further expand the EU.

However, it is sufficient to see the Central European Free Trade Agreement, agreements in which our six countries are firm, to understand that the economic zone can help, not hinder our progress. CEFTA was originally established by the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. They used this agreement to prove their ability to work together, regardless of political or cultural differences, and to show they were fully qualified to be full-fledged EU members.

The benefits of a regional economic zone are immediate. The Western Balkan market of 20 million people is more attractive to trade and investors than the Albanian market of less than four million people.

This is important to my government. We want to release the full potential of our national capacities and encourage creation of more jobs and production. So we will do our best to convince our neighbors to support this plan. We have some ideas that we will express to assure them of the good intentions of the EU, and I am sure that Johannes Hahn, the European Commissioner for Enlargement, will do the same.

Finally, all of this is important for stability. We cannot have stability without a growing economy. The time has come to cast once and for all the lack of stability that has long marked the Balkans