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| Edi Rama and Emmanuel Macron shaking hands in Paris, April 12, 2024 |
From Emmanuel Macron*
I am very pleased, Mr. Prime Minister, to welcome you here as part of your official visit to France. You are at home in every sense of the word. You, who use our language so well, who have lived in our country in this city, are also here because France loves you, loves your country, and I was very eager to welcome you to Paris after the welcome you gave me last October during the first visit of a French Republic president to Albania since Albania's independence in 1912.
These two reciprocal visits and the dialogue we have with each other testify to the extraordinary dynamics of relations between Albania and France. You know that you can trust my determination to intensify even more. I want to reaffirm France's commitment to support Albania's European engagement and, more broadly, the movement we have for the Western Balkans.
As I emphasized six months ago in Tirana, this is only about acting for the unity of Europe, to make it stronger, more sovereign in the context of Russian aggression against Ukraine, but also facing common threats and challenges. It is also a promise of peace for the entire region. Since holding the first intergovernmental conference between the EU and Albania in July 2022, Albania has continued its European path with determination.
You can trust our support to accompany you on this journey, aiming for negotiations to proceed as quickly as possible, and I tell you that we are impressed by the totality of the reforms and the capacity to progress in all these years, especially in the recent months under your leadership.
I also want to greet the special and strong voice of Albania in the region and on the international stage. This was evident during the past two years when your country was in the United Nations Security Council.
Finally, you were welcomed in Tirana at a regional summit where you also invited President Zelenskyy to further strengthen support for Ukraine. This was an important moment for regional unity and support for President Zelenskyy and his people.
In all regional issues, normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo, where your voice is valuable, is necessary. Our exchanges today will allow us to continue on this path and to take stock of the sites we have opened together to strengthen our valuable partnership in all areas.
All these sites have advanced, and I am delighted with the signing of an intergovernmental agreement shortly, which will give a new impetus to our cooperation, especially in key areas such as water management, sustainable tourism, and innovation. This last topic is at the center of your visit because this afternoon you will go to Station F to launch a France-Albania innovation council.
The French Development Agency will continue to support Albania in its economic reforms and energy transition, and the signing of a €120 million loan for environmental reform and a memorandum of cooperation with the Ministry of Environment will allow us to go beyond these stages and even more than what we started six months ago with the entrepreneurs who had come then with me.
In Tirana, culture and education are at the heart of our exchanges, whether in the Palace of Brigades and the figure of Kadare or even in the France Cube, this space you wanted to reserve for France at the Pyramid. I am also delighted with the cultural, intellectual, and human exchanges between the two countries. All these constitute a beautiful promise for our bilateral relations.
To conclude my speech, I want to say how much I admire the path your country has taken for friendship, for very deep European feelings. I would say maybe indeed that the French are even more European than the French, so we attach importance to this, and this is very important for us because you are you, we are us, the relations are special, and this is thanks to this joint work. Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister!
*The full speech of French President Emmanuel Macron at the press conference with Prime Minister Edi Rama at the Elysee Palace