June or the year 2021 can be a really good year for the countries of the Western Balkans.
The Commissioner for Enlargement in the European Union, Olivér Várhelyi said today in a joint conference with Prime Minister Edi Rama that he had arrived in Albania with good news.
It is an agreement reached last week in the European Council alone for 30 billion euros in investments in the Western Balkans region.
“The news I brought here today for you is that we already have an agreement in the EU to finance this plan.
Last week we reached an agreement with the Council and the European Parliament on the IPA 3 program, which is assistance, pre-accession funds, which will be the mechanism through which this plan will be financed.
For our part, we are ready to start this investment plan with funds.
We want the partners to start with this plan as soon as possible.
We are entering June which is a critical month for the Western Balkans.
We have many issues on the table, we in the EU want to organize intergovernmental conferences with Serbia and Montenegro, we want to organize the first two intergovernmental conferences with Albania and Northern Macedonia, we have this summit today to show the results.
“This month, this year may indeed be the month or year of the Western Balkans, but we all want to show results and achievements.” said Várhelyi.
“We are ready to reconfirm the investment plan, 30 billion euros in the form of investments in the region, but this plan will not work if the region does not function as a whole, if there is no regional market, highways do not make sense if cars will stop any 100 meters, it does not make sense for the railways if the trains will encounter difficulties or trade routes if there will have to be 6 certificates for these goods. So this economic plan will give results only if this region works for this regional market and this is the environment where it will work. “, Varhelyi further explained.
