After yesterday’s seventh meeting, which was held in Tirana as part of the “Open Balkans” initiative, at which the leaders of the three countries of the initiative, Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, his Albanian counterpart Edi Rama and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic signed five agreements, a positive assessment comes from one of the most famous Albanian analysts, Mentor Nazarko, who also uses the assessments of experts in the field of economics.
According to him, the initiative takes full shape, because it meets with support from the EU and the United States, recalling the participation of two European and American representatives in yesterday’s meeting.
– The significance must be seen in the daily life of the citizens, businesses, whose work is related to colleagues, associates in countries in the region such as Northern Macedonia or Serbia, in territories that are not only in Albania. This initiative has several interesting moments, the frequency of high-level meetings which in a sense are informal because they do not have a fixed date, fixed order, but in the meantime have a voting principle that is not consensus, the parties agree on the principle of consensus which is a principle and he told News 24.
He adds that agreements have been signed that have practical value, for certain interest groups, individuals or businesses and obviously this initiative is taking shape, getting even more complete form, by joining the initiative and the business holidays of the three countries and businesses.
– This initiative has a dimension related to relaxation, ie the establishment of a kind of good interpersonal relations of the Balkan leaders. This relationship also affects the relationship between societies. What is also important to note is the fact that after the mutual confusion between the EU and the US, which usually prefers the initiatives they control, this initiative finds their support. The EU, through Commissioner Varhei, called on other non-participating countries to join, while for the United States, although there was no formal attire, it was Jim O’Brien (senior adviser to the Atlantic Council), close to the Biden administration to the extent that he would be a supervising prosecutor for the frozen assets of politicians in the Balkans, Nazarko said.
Citing well-known domestic experts, he added that the full opening of the Balkan market would triple the agricultural component of GDP for each of the countries.
-Of course, this inter-Balkan interaction takes place in conditions when Serbia dominates the Balkan market with its products, due to its larger area, due to the tradition in economic and agricultural development and of course due to strong lobbying in certain sectors, such as flour or if we go abroad from the agricultural sector and in energy or other areas. “If we started from the current status quo, we would not have made any progress,” he said.
Regarding the refusal of the other three countries to join and the possibility that they will be part of it, he looks at Montenegro with optimism, Bosnia with skepticism, and called some of Kosovo’s claims wrong, emphasizing that they should have a constructive access.
“Above all, Montenegro has given important signals to join this initiative. Bosnia has a complex reality, it has a tripartite presidency, Croat, Serb, Bosnian Muslim, who fail to find consensus on more important existential issues and even more so on the “Open Balkans”, while Kosovo has other explanations for rejecting the idea. Kosovo must be constructive in either the regional co-operation plan or the Brussels-mediated dialogue plan, said renowned Albanian analyst Nazarko.
Source: MIA
