Rama Addresses UAE Solidarity Visit, Greece Bilateral, Mountain Package, and SME Credit Programme

Prime Minister Edi Rama used the sixteenth episode of the sixth season of his weekly podcast, Flasim, to address several policy and governance matters: a solidarity visit to Abu Dhabi following attacks on the UAE linked to the Iranian regime, a bilateral meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Athens, the growing uptake of the mountain package programme, the forthcoming Double Your Enterprise SME credit scheme, and a meeting with food industry operators on EU food safety standards. Below is an edited transcript of the weekly address, lightly condensed and corrected for clarity from the original recording.

This week I made a brief visit to Abu Dhabi and then to Greece. Two stops connected to two aspects of Albania’s international relations and international standing.

In Abu Dhabi I went to meet a very dear and proven friend of Albania and of Albanians, and also one of the most respected leaders in the world today, whom I have the honour to consider also my personal friend: President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, at a very sensitive moment for his country and for that region, caught up in a conflict as a result of the attack against the criminal regime of Tehran. It was a visit of solidarity, a visit to confirm the brotherhood that binds us to that country and to those countries, and on the other hand also the belief that the Emirates will pass through this phase and will emerge stronger from this great challenge.

I do not exaggerate in the slightest when I say that the President of the United Arab Emirates is a dear and proven friend of Albania and of Albanians, for since his youth he came to Albania not for tourism and not for a formal meeting, but to lead the group sent by the late Sheikh Zayed to help those Albanians who had abandoned their homes in Kosovo and flooded into Albania, remaining in large numbers in Kukes, to flee the murderous machinery of Slobodan Milosevic. And since then, with that country, with that people, and with that great man, a relationship has been built which in the last ten years has taken on an entirely different dimension. It was precisely the President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, who ordered the disbursement of the largest solidarity fund with Albania after the earthquake, and with that fund an entire model neighbourhood was built in Durres.

On the other hand, what connects us to the United Arab Emirates includes work and projects of a strategic character, as well as projects of a nature related to Albania’s growth and strengthening on the path of its modernisation.

I am very pleased to confirm that from the President and from the leadership of the United Arab Emirates I once again received an extraordinarily positive energy regarding Albania, and the confirmation that our friendship grows stronger and that our alliance will be reinforced step by step with more cooperation, more projects, and with greater closeness between our states and our peoples.

The stop in Athens was of a different nature, but again connected to what I said at the outset: Albania’s position and the desire to see Albania represented at the highest level, and to have our positions and opinions heard, particularly in this case at an economic forum of international reputation and prestige, where, because of geographic proximity and history, Albania held a special place on a platform where the main directions of global development are discussed, and also regional development, and in this case also the relationship with our neighbouring country.

I went to take part in the forum, but had the pleasure of being received by the Prime Minister of Greece and a valued friend, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, with whom we reviewed the progress of the work of the joint group we have established to resolve once and for all all outstanding issues and to bring the interstate relationship between Albania and Greece to a new level.

I am very pleased to say that on the part of the Prime Minister there is an absolute will to prioritise the addressing of all outstanding issues, to confirm within this year, through a new strategic partnership document, the very special nature of the relationship between our two countries, and on the other hand to support Albania, as always, with the exception of certain difficult moments, on the path of its membership in the European Union. Having said all of this, I am very optimistic and at the same time very confident that, thanks also to the personal commitment of Prime Minister Mitsotakis, we will be able to address the outstanding issues and strengthen our relationship further through special care both for the Greek minority in Albania and for Albanians in Greece.

The next note is connected not to an event but to a programme, a national programme which has now begun to take shape through an impressive number of expressions of interest and applications, above all from our brothers and sisters outside Albania who, thanks to this programme, are turning their gaze toward Albania not simply to follow developments as they have always done, whether in the affairs of the country or in the lives of their families, but to invest their savings. The mountain package. The mountain package is opening a new path in rural development and is creating the conditions for added value, for a new engine in our tourism industry, giving the mountains, giving highland Albania a new dimension through the transformation of ancestral land and ancestral homes into instruments of development and into genuinely new opportunities to build enterprises and to generate income that is without question higher than what can be generated by working for others abroad.

The process has been made simple, has been made accessible. Investment can begin without the final title of ownership. This is what the mountain package was created for: to address a longstanding problem in magnificent territories where legitimate owners do not hold title to their property because they did not accept Law 7501, and where in the meantime there are no conflicts among themselves. Through investment they will be able to ensure that at the end of the process, where there will also be significant fiscal incentives, for example the first five hundred who receive a permit to begin work will be exempt from taxes for ten years, they will also receive the title of ownership. So to all those who are listening and who are interested, or who are hesitant, or who are sceptical: try the mountain package. Try the mountain package, and there is little doubt that should you open the door of the old family home and relight the hearth in that house, or create a small farm, a small agro-processing facility somewhere on land far from urban territories, time will prove me right, will prove us right, and you will be glad of the step you take today, because the investment will return to you as prosperity and as good fortune for your families, while at the same time being a contribution to Albania.

Following the mountain package comes another new programme of the Albanian government, together with the Bank of Albania and the second-tier banks, which will soon be signed to begin its journey and to welcome into that journey all those who wish to double their enterprise. A powerful credit programme with interest rates more reasonable than the commercial rates of the second-tier banks, and with guarantees from the Albanian government, is finally being made ready to serve all those Albanians, men and women, who with courage, with will, and with foresight have chosen to open their path through entrepreneurship, who have chosen to build a small business which is now ready to grow but needs the financial support that they cannot otherwise secure. This is a new path, and soon all those who have a small or medium enterprise, all those who have a production facility that they wish to double and grow, all those who have a startup and wish to transform it into a profitable productive enterprise, will find the door of the Double Your Enterprise programme open to them.

At the centre of this week has been what will be at the centre of all weeks going forward, in one way or another: food safety and approximation with European Union standards. At a meeting organised with food industry operators, we addressed a very concrete matter.

We will guarantee that every product consumed by citizens is not simply safe, but is a product accepted and successful in tomorrow’s common European market, of which we will be members with equal rights and equal obligations. And this is connected to a more complex current challenge of our EU membership process: securing the future for all those who have built the present on the foundations of a collection, processing, or production point for food sub-products, meaning everything from live animals to packaged products. A process that is often misunderstood as a checklist of tasks to be completed for others, when in essence it is something directly connected not simply to the health of Albanians here in Albania, of consumers here in Albania, but also to our shared national mission of Albania in the European Union. The year 2030 is not a matter of rules on paper; it is a matter of building together a functional system of production, control, quality, and trust at every link in the chain. At this stage Albania is not only harmonising its legislation with the European Union, but must also ensure the concrete application of laws in everyday reality. And therefore we are engaging and will engage ever more actively with entrepreneurs and enterprises in agriculture, with entrepreneurs and enterprises dealing with animal products and their derivatives, and with entrepreneurs and enterprises dealing with everything that today comes from the soil of Albania thanks to their work and their golden hands.