Border agreement between Albania, Northern Macedonia comes into force

Albania's prime minister, Edi Rama, and his Macedonian counterpart, Dimitar Kovacevski, inspected the Qafe Thanas border point, where the “One stop shop” (a stop, a check), between the two countries.

The two prime ministers estimated that the facilities in the circulation of people and goods came “as a result of the Open Balkans”.

Northern Macedonia Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevski said the two countries “are an example of how two neighbouring states must behave”, while stressing that there should be no borders among all Balkan countries.

<x) Thanks to the Open Balkans, it has grown to 40 % trade exchanges with Albania and 50 %s in relation to Serbia”, Kovachevski said.

Albania's prime minister, Edi Rama, said this initiative should continue further towards free movement, and random vehicle control.

“I hope that the Interior Ministers (both countries) will switch to another level in this season's peak period and in other summer seasons, to make the transition without control, or rather with random car control, in order to facilitate further circulation”, Rama said.

Both Kovachevski and Rama stressed the importance the Open Balkans have played in this.

“The unification of customs is the ultimate goal, but we don't have to expect the European Union to advance in this direction. There have been many skeptics when we started this process first like Minisen, then the open Balkans, but the facts speak for themselves”.

The decision to implement joint border control in Qafe-Thana was approved at the joint meeting of the two governments, held on November 14th 2022.

With this meeting, which was the second among the governments of the two countries, 21 agreements and memorandums were signed, connecting with co-operation between Albania and Northern Macedonia in the field of security, tourism, trade, as well as in the field of electricity.