Rama-Merkel: Optimism for status
01/04/2014

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The Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama, is attending a visit in Germany, one of the main European Union countries. During this visit which might be the most important for the first six months for Rama’s government, Germany presented a positive approach on Albania’s EU candidate status in June.

The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, received the Albanian Prime Minister with an official ceremony and military honors in the German Chancellery.

The declarations of Rama and Merkel in a joint press conference focused mostly on the position that Germany will hold for Albania’s candidate status in June.

When asked by Top Channel if there will be a different treatment among Western Balkan countries, with Serbia being in the negotiation process while Albania has not received the status yet, Mrs.Merkel declared:

“We treat countries based on the European Commission reports. We will have a new report in June. The Commission will have recorded the progress of Albania and we will take a positive look to the report. We will decide with a positive look. The matter is not whether Albania will receive the status, but when. It depends on the reports that we receive”.

“Our country is in Europe and we will do everything possible to deserve the respect and place that Albanians aspire, with the help of Germany, with the help of the Chancellor and our European partners. And we will deliver by doing our tasks in a process that is not short. We are aware that integration is an extraordinary process for the modernization of Albania”, Rama declared.

Part of Rama’s discussion with Chancellor Merkel was the economic cooperation between the two countries. When asked if there will be more German investments in Albania, Merkel declared that German investors need a country where justice is more effective. Rama guaranteed that his government will do everything to attract foreign investments in Albania.

“The Prime Minister will meet with German investors. We will encourage them to invest in Albania. Legal security is very important for German investors and for private investors in general. They need trust in the judiciary, and that’s why we insist for more justice reforms. Not because we consider a well functioning judiciary as something beautiful, but we have many businesses in Germany which depend a lot from the fact that they want to invest their capital where they find better conditions. The sooner the judiciary is reformed, the bigger and the faster will be the interest of German investors for Albania”, Merkel declared.

“Our country is attractive and we will do everything possible for creating the conditions and attract more German investments in Albania. We see the German investments in Albania not only as an income resource, but also as an instrument for transforming the business culture and our working culture. For this reasons, we give them a double value. That’s why we will keep our contacts with the businesses here. We have planned to push these contacts forward”, Rama declared.

The influence of Rama’s visit in increasing the German investments is still to be seen. What is certain is that the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, will visit Albania within this year.

“If you ask me after one year, I would have been in Albania”, the German Chancellor declared.