By Ben Andoni
On January 14, it will be 10 years since the first meeting between the two respective governments of Albania and Kosovo. The Government initiated the meeting between Thaçi-3 and Rama-1, and in the summer of this year Kurti-2 and Rama-3 should also be in Prizren. In a general finding, the agreements are more patriotic than they have brought welfare to the citizens of our two countries.
The slogan: “Two states, one nation” has served more for patriotic propaganda than the purpose with which these meetings were actually initiated. Almost 184 signed agreements, but only 58 have been reached between our two republics, or in other words, almost 1/3 of them. The most beautiful news these days has been the Albania-Kosovo railway, about 130 km, which is expected to start work in 2024. But these calculated agreements that would bring us much closer did not go where expected.
The results are not just disappointing, but also show to some extent that Albanians on both sides of the border, even when they want to pursue a great idea, leave much to be desired. Above all, now the concern is also in the sense of the two main protagonists, respectively the behavior of Prime Minister Rama and the Kosovar Kurti.
Simply, their boundless ambition has damaged this relationship quite a bit: Kurti who tries to get involved with his political subject in the election processes in Albania and North Macedonia, where he should have been antagonistic and neutral; while Rama, who constantly talks, talks about Kosovo as a prime minister of an EU country and, recently in the summer, canceled the 10th meeting between our two countries in Gjakovë!!
The sadness of this behavior, to some extent infantile, is made greater by facing the economic figures. The International Monetary Fund, in its estimates for 2023, has placed Albania and Kosovo as the poorest countries in Europe, based on indicators of income per capita, which are measured by calculating purchasing power, a real indicator of how much value money for the inhabitants of a country.
Albania is ranked in the last countries, referring to the per capita income of 19 thousand international dollars (this is calculated according to the purchasing power standard). Whereas Kosovo is even lower at 15.6 thousand international dollars (Monitor, 2023).
However, the Government of Kosovo, through Prime Minister Kurti, showing the optimistic part, has explained that: of the 41 agreements signed in the last two previous meetings, 39 of them had been fully implemented and two others remained in the final stage of implementation.
It is understood that it cannot be said that there are no positive developments, but they remain very far from those required by the executives of our two countries. For almost more than 200 thousand inhabitants of our common border zone, free movement was made possible, making 26 separate crossings functional. During the summer, weekends and especially holidays, the authorities enabled the free crossing of the borders of the citizens of Kosovo without checks. The procedures for residence permits have been simplified, with a 5-year term, while Kosovo, with two customs offices of the Republic of Kosovo in Durrës and Porto Romano, gained access to the sea. Customs clearance of all goods destined for Kosovo takes place there. “This has directly helped our businesses that have already saved 9 million euros, at the same time that Albania’s economy has also benefited from a 50% increase in Kosovo shipments through the Port of Durrës”, Kurti would say a few weeks ago.
And yet, without further ado in economic terms, the Institute for Advanced Research GAP, based in Pristina, has done a series of researches on this issue. It has been found that Kosovar businesses pay about 2 million euros per year just for scanning the goods, before they enter Albania (Monitor, 2023). In fact, there are a series of data that show in the trade balance statements that Kosovo has a better trading partner in Serbia than Albania, and this is a bit excessive, given the economic power of Belgrade. In fact, this is an area where our governments should have worked harder, first to reduce this level of poverty, about which we talk less and less, because Kurti and Rama, I deal more with “big politics” and second to bring our two countries closer together.
This, considered as a paradox, would be enough to make us sit with our feet on the ground and to show us a truth that we have before our eyes but that very little enlightens us: The well-being of Albanians on both sides of the border, leaves much to be desired. The IMF figures openly show this reality and the paradox of Rama-Kurti’s empty protagonism, which is worth nothing, except for their blogs.
