Albania-Serbia: Strategic relationship, local ownership needed
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- “Working together and closer cooperation is the best way for solving difficult issues. I believe that this ‘agree to disagree’ formula is actually a very wise approach. Conflict does not benefit societies, trade relations and the economy do. People in the Western Balkans need jobs,” said Jan Braathu, the Kosovo-based Norway Ambassador to Albania
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TIRANA, July 6 - It is high time Albania and Serbia built a strategic relationship and local ownership is needed to move forward to a common future into the EU, Albert Rakipi, the executive director of the Albanian Institute for International Studies, has told a round table on Albania-Serbia Economic Relations.
“It is time Albania and Serbia build a strategic relationship. This is the only way so that the whole region finally moves to an area of peace and cooperation. This means building Europe at home,” said Rakipi on Wednesday at the round table organized by the AIIS and the Norwegian embassy in Kosovo supporting the Albania-Serbia project.
A newly established Joint Centre for Albanian-Serbia Relations, an initiative by the Albanian Institute for International Studies (AIIS) and the European Movement Serbia, is helping normalize relations between the two countries which have almost been in a cold War status quo until recently and held back by stereotypes.
Forums in Durres and Belgrade last May as part of the Joint Centre for Albania-Serbia relations brought together civil society representatives from both Serbia and Albania in a new effort to identify concrete cooperation opportunities that would normalize relations between the two countries which have remained difficult since the late 1940s when communist Albania and then-Yugoslavia ended their relationship as key allies.
“A strategic relation between Albania and Serbia can sound as heresy and will for sure be attacked by 'patriots' who intercept and attack from the bunkers of isolation. But relations with neighbors are always strategic. War is strategic and peace is also strategic, but both war and peace mainly happen between neighbors,” said Rakipi.
“States are linked by interests and between Albania and Serbia there are much more interests than between Albania and quite many EU countries. A new narrative has to be reinvented. The common European future is a beautiful and necessary narrative which has had results, but if we want to have safe and long-term results, the local ownership is a must,” he added.
Jan Braathu, the Kosovo-based Norway Ambassador to Albania also stressed the importance of strategic relationship and local ownership in Albania-Serbia relations.
“Foreigners can be partners they can help you but the work and heavy lifting actually needs to be done by you. Your friends and partners can help you with the context and framework such as the Berlin Process, but at the end of the day it is up to the countries here what kind of regional neighborly relationship they want to have,” said the ambassador.
“Small things such as music are indicative of a desire to have normal relations between Albanians and Serbs,” said Braathu.
“Working together and closer cooperation is the best way for solving difficult issues. I believe that this ‘agree to disagree’ formula is actually a very wise approach. Conflict does not benefit societies, trade relations and the economy do. Finding a way of dealing with our disagreements is important. People in the Western Balkans need jobs,” added the ambassador.
Kosovo, which gained independence from Serbia in 2008, has been a tough issue in Albania-Serbia relations but the predominantly ethnic Albanian country now recognized by 112 countries and aspiring EU integration is normalizing relations with Serbia and is no longer seen as a barrier in Serbia-Albania cooperation.
Serbian Ambassador to Albania Miroljub Zaric cited Prime Minister Vucic in his latest meeting with his Albanian counterpart Rama this week at the Paris conference when he said "We will work on making relations between Serbia and Albania the best possible, in order to maintain regional stability, but also because of the economic interests of our citizens."
Rama, Vucic meetings have now become quite normal following Rama's visit to Belgrade in October 2014 when he became the first Albanian PM to visit Serbia in 68 years in a tense climate following a drone incident in a football match, but paving the way to the normalization of relations between the two countries which are considered key players for the region’s security, economic development and the Western Balkan’s European integration.
The Serbian ambassador announced the establishment of a joint Albania-Serbia chamber of commerce in Tirana by the end of this year which will be preceded by a high level meeting between political and business elites.
Daily direct flights between Tirana and Belgrade by Air Serbia have also contributed to higher human and business exchanges at a time when Serbian construction companies are looking for investment opportunities on the Albanian coast.
Albanian business association representatives from the Tirana Chamber of Commerce and the Konfindustria urged regional cooperation and complementary economic policies considering the Western Balkans small size of 20 million consumers in the European and global market.
“Albania and Serbia are destined to cooperate with each other as two small regional economies and the Nis-Pristina highway can boost the cooperation,” said economist Arjan Kadareja.
Albania-Serbia trade exchanges at only an annual Euro 173 million are dominated by electricity and grains and fresh vegetables.
AIIS policy recommendations
Three policy papers focused on trade, tourism and transport between Albania and Serbia were presented by AIIS researchers who also identified recommendations to boost current low cooperation levels.
“Serbia and Albania are the two largest countries of the Western Balkans and at the same time they exert a major political influence in the region. As such, relations between these two countries are instrumental for the stability and the future integration of the region into the EU. In this context, trade relationship between Serbia and Albania will play a crucial role to the further consolidation of the fragile political ties between the two countries,” say AIIS researchers Sokol Lleshi and Dritan Sulà§ebe.
“Reinvigoration of transport linkages between the two countries constitutes a sustainable investment that yields positive spill-over effects in economic growth and interconnectivity,” says an AIIS policy paper.
“Tourism is a powerful tool of bring different countries together. By better knowing one another, people of different cultures and backgrounds will find it much harder to generate feelings of hatred and animosity against each other,” says the tourism policy paper.