TIRANA, Feb. 11 – Albania and Serbia have established a technical group to identify common infrastructure projects in the Western Balkans that will be submitted to the European Commission as part of the commitment for future enlargement of the European Union.
The deal was reached during a recent visit Serbian Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Zorana Mihajlovic paid to Albania, in what was described by Serb media as the first bilateral meeting between Serbian and Albanian officials in Tirana after 23 years.
“The Albanian and Serbian government are arranging the joint infrastructure projects that will be introduced in Vienna and the European Union by our two Prime Ministers,” said Albania’s Economy Minister Arben Ahmetaj.
“This is an important step of bilateral and regional cooperation because connectivity was the keyword in the Berlin Summit last year,” he added.
Serbian minister Mihajlovic said “we target introducing this joint project next May which will also mark the start of cooperation. On April 10, we will have the first draft of the joint document which deals with the reconstruction of roads linking not only Serbia and Albania but the whole of the Balkans.”
“Serbia and Albania want to move forward and of course remain partners,” she noted.
The Nis-Prishtina-Tirana highway, the Belgrade-Bar-Durres-Vlore railway line, the construction of Corridor 11 from Belgrade to Montenegro and its intersection with the Adriatic-Ionian Motorway i.e. the Blue Corridor, reconstruction of the Belgrade-Bar rail line and its connection with Albanian harbors are some of the joint project between Albania and Serbia.
The meeting in Tirana came after a conference on Western Balkans held in August 2014, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel reconfirmed the Western Balkans future into the European Union.
Last November, Albania Prime Minister Edi Rama made the first visit to Serbia for 68 years by an Albanian Prime Minister, which despite differences over Kosovo’s independence, served to set a new cooperation era between the two countries.
