H.E. Mr. Qirjako Qirko:

I thank the Chairman. I thank the distinguished members of the committee for their kind and encouraging words on the integration of our region into the European Union. I wish to make a brief clarification as to why NATO membership is important for our region in comparison with the situation of Ireland.

A third party is also very interested in the region. It is an old dream of the Tsars and the first secretaries of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to have a presence in the region. In the 1960s, Khruschev had a plan to build a huge naval and submarine base in Vlorë on the south coast of Albania. Perhaps the only thing for which I appreciate our dictator was that, in 1961, he broke the relationship and kicked out the Russians from the submarine.

For small countries like Albania, Montenegro or Macedonia, this protection is important. We hope that one day our neighbours, Serbia and Bosnia, will join our family because membership of NATO is important for the whole region. The situation is different from the situation in Ireland and other countries. We would like to join NATO as Albanians. As a country, our values would set a good example in the European Union. For example, Albania has not built any walls against refugees from Syria. We only have 300 refugees but we have good experience of treating people who are in need. After the Second World War, the number of Jewish people in Albania was ten times higher than the number before the war. Jewish people came from Austria and Germany and found shelter in Albania, where they were protected by Muslim people. More than 50% of Albanians are Muslim but they are liberal Muslim people. We have a code of honour called "Besa" which means that people have a responsibility for everything that happens to a person in need and a duty to protect that person. That is why nothing happened to Jewish people after the war.

In the 1990s, 700,000 people from Kosovo found shelter and protection in Albania after what Milosevic did to the population. We now have 3,000 mujahidin from Iran, the opposition to the Government of the Ayatollah, living peacefully in Albania and we are glad about that. We would like to join the European Union with a good model for how different religions can exist together. Some 30% of the population of Albania is Orthodox Christian and 20% Roman Catholic but we have never had problems in our history because we feel Albanian first and then Muslim or Christian. For us, religion is not something which divides people. Inside every religion there are values if they are respected correctly. Every kind of radicalism is negative and we would like to join what we see as our normal family with these values. It is a perfect relationship between people with different ethnicity. Some 98% of people in Albania are Albanian but we have a minority of Greeks, Macedonians and Montenegrans and we have never had trouble. Sometimes we do not know if a person belongs to a minority because they are always well accepted.

In Albania, 100% of energy comes from water sources and the Government encourages investment in this area, which is one of our main areas of investment. Tourism is an important part of our economy and, last year, 5% of GDP was from tourism. In the near future we hope to increase that and, through changes in the fiscal system, the Government is encouraging the building of four-star and five-star hotels. If someone builds one they will be free of taxes for the next ten years and there is great interest in this from different companies, including international companies.