H.E. Mr. Qirjako Qirko:

Good morning. I am honoured and privileged to be here today. I would like to express the gratitude of my President, my Government and my Parliament to all political parties in Ireland for the continuous and unconditional support this country, this Parliament and this Government is giving to the ambitions and to our dream to one day join the European Union. I repeat that, from the beginning of this process, Ireland has been the country which has unconditionally supported our ambition to join the European Union.

I would like to say a few words about the situation in the western Balkans. The Balkans are known for being problematic and, historically, there have been problems in the relations between countries, in particular with the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, the last war in Europe before the Ukraine war. In the past 20 years, however, there has been new development. The so-called Berlin process has helped and assisted countries to join together and to seek common interests. I would like to give an example. Traditionally and historically, the relationship between Albania and Serbia has not been very good, and for 64 years we did not have any exchange of visits between the leaders of our two countries. However, last year, even in the framework of the Covid restrictions, the leaders of the western Balkans, including the leaders of Albania and Serbia, have met each other ten times. We are in discussions to prepare ourselves so that, one day, we can join the European Union. At present, Albania, Serbia and North Macedonia are part of what is called the Open Balkan process. We believe that, through this process, we will prepare ourselves in the model of the Benelux countries, and we hope that other countries of the western Balkans will soon join this initiative.

In the meantime, Albania is trying its best to do its homework. Four years ago, we started a big reform of the judiciary. Referring to the different pools, the judicial system was the most corrupted at that time. With the assistance of the European Union, we undertook a huge constitutional reform. A commission has been set up to check the wealth of magistrates and, after four years of this process, more than 50% of the magistrates have not passed this vetting. The first step is that we have kicked them out from the judicial system and the next step is that there will be an investigation against them about their unjustified wealth.

It has been explained to me that I have five minutes for a short presentation and that I should then be ready for any questions.