The First EU–Western Balkans Investment Forum opened today in Tirana and will run over two days as a strategic platform, supported by the European Commission, aimed at strengthening economic cooperation and investment opportunities between the Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia) and the member states of the European Union (EU).

The Forum promotes dialogue among key investors, political leaders, and business executives, highlighting the transformative power of strategic investments in the economic development of the region. It also draws on the concrete experience of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, which have achieved remarkable success stories in their economic development following EU accession.

At the opening of the Forum, Prime Minister Rama and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivered their welcoming remarks.

 

Prime Minister Edi Rama: Dear friends, dear neighbors,

Very warm welcome to all of you in Tirana, to another highlight gathering in the growing friendship and the shared European destiny that binds us.

And please, join me in welcoming here today the President of the European Commission, the dear friend of Albania and of our region, Ursula von der Leyen.

Thank you, dear Ursula, for coming back to the Western Balkans – to bring more good news to us, and of course, more homework for us – but also to enjoy more sun, better food, and certainly less boredom than in your EU Brussel bubble.

With your permission, Madame President, I would like to extend a special thank you to your team for their remarkable cooperation – and to your Director General, Gert Jan, for having shared with us his sharp thoughts about the usefulness of such an investment conference between the EU and the Western Balkans Six -a conference that we are eager to turn into a yearly rendez-vous, with an ever more ambitious program.

Dear participants, for too long, the story of Europe and the Western Balkans has been written in the grammar of waiting. Waiting for the EU became almost synonymous with waiting for Godot. Albania and North Macedonia became the Siamese reincarnation of Vladimir and Estragon – impossible to decouple, condemned to wait together.

But we never stopped dreaming about the moment when the story would change – and we never stopped working so that when that moment came, it would find us ready, prepared, and ahead of schedule.

And it went precisely like this, when the moment did come, we were ready – ready to embark, together with the European Commission, on a negotiation process that could not be more intense, nor more liberated from the ghosts of the past.

From our bid for membership to our appetite for growth, a new map is being drawn – not on paper, but in the pace of our closeness with the EU, in the flow of European tourists and investments, and in the awakening of a simple but powerful idea:

That the Western Balkans are not Europe’s backyard, nor its second-hand neighborhood, but its New Frontier. A New Frontier, not of walls and borders, but of energy and imagination.

A frontier where Europe can rediscover her agility, her hunger, her creative drive — and above all, her love for life, for peace, and for togetherness.

The more we look at the world around us – where the great game of economics moves faster, where supply chains tremble, where technologies reshape life every hour, and where the green transition demands not only rules but courage – the more we feel, as never before, the need for more Europe.

And right here, in the heart of this peninsula once dismissed as the periphery, or labelled the powder keg of Europe, lies a region growing twice as fast as the European average, carrying low debt, and more importantly an entrepreneurial energy that is not afraid of tomorrow.

That is not a coincidence. That is an opportunity. That is a new frontier. The “New Frontier” means, to me, a place where European investments find a new speed, where innovation is not buried under paper; where resilience is not a slogan, but a daily necessity met with unconditioned dedication to the unification of Europe.

A place where projects can move from ideas to reality faster than anywhere else on the continent, where regulations are not a labyrinth, but a ladder; where the private sector and governments move not in parallel lines, but in convergence as partners in a shared future.

A place where the EU and this region meet not just to talk about the future, but to make the future. It doesn’t need much science, but it does need some courage to realize that the Western Balkans can become Europe’s regulatory sandbox, its laboratory of resilience; a space to test, to build, and to prove the future.

From energy and critical raw materials to AI infrastructure and high-tech manufacturing, this is where European value chains can expand, diversify, and grow stronger, because let’s face it: Europe cannot afford to depend on what it cannot control.

And we, in the Balkans, cannot afford to remain what we have always been called – at best – “potential.” So, let’s replace potential with purpose. Let’s turn this corner of Europe into a fast lane of Europe’s transformation. Let us imagine a common New Frontier Zone – a connected ecosystem where investments are approved not in years, but in months; where compliance is simple and transparent, where the laws of the market meet the values of the Union.

Let’s make it a living space for nearshoring – not just in production, but in trust.

Let’s make it the place where European companies come not for cheap labor, but for smart partnership. We know our place. We are not asking to be granted, for a seat at the table for free.

We are asking to help the EU in its effort to build the table anew. Because enlargement – or unification, as I prefer to call it – cannot be only about geography.

It must be about strategic intelligence. The Western Balkans are not a problem to be solved, but a solution waiting to be integrated.

This is the message of the New Frontier: that the next chapter of Europe’s resilience and competitiveness will not be written in Brussels alone, but also in Tirana, Podgorica, Belgrade, Skopje, Pristina, Sarajevo – together.

From Coal and Steel to Innovation and Trust, to our European partners:

We do not ask for charity, nor for gifts, nor for more patience. We ask only for vision. The same vision that once united coal and steel to create peace, can now unite innovation and investment to create resilience.

The same vision that once brought fellow nations – Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Slovenia – into the European Union, opening a New Frontier that created extraordinary growth for them and brought back dividends to Europe that it had not seen in decades.

Let us, together, draw a roadmap where our incentives match your priorities, our reforms match your needs, and our ambitions match your scale.

As Albert Camus once said: “Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.”

Europe’s strength will not be measured by the size of its institutions, but by the reach of its imagination, and imagination that is something the Western Balkans have in abundance.

So let us give all we have to this present moment, to this New Frontier we can build together, and let us remember the words of Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of Europe: “People only accept change when they are faced with necessity, and they only see necessity when a crisis is upon them.”

Well, necessity is here, and crisis is already upon us. So let us transform necessity into vision, and crisis into creation. Let us open this New Frontier not with declarations, but with deeds. Let us prove that between the Alps and the Aegean, there is still room for Europe to grow – and to grow wiser, faster, freer.

Along these lines let me quote our President, Ursula Von Der Leyen, who in her State of the Union Address made it very clear, “Europe will always do better when we work together with our partners, with our neighbors, with those who share our hopes and our history.”

So let us work together — not only for the Europe we inherited, but for the Europe we can still imagine.

Thank you.

 

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen: Thank you very much, Prime Minister, dear Edi, for hosting this forum here in Tirana.

Ladies and gentlemen, actually one year ago I came to Albania and to the entire region with a pledge. The pledge that the people and companies of the Western Balkans would start to experience the European Union in their daily lives. That you would feel the benefits of moving forward together. And one year on, this is exactly what’s happening.

Let me just give you one example. I remember very well, dear Edi when you first told me that you wanted Albania to join the single euro payments era, in short, SEPA. My services told you it would take a lot of work from you, a lot of determination to pass reforms, and a lot of time.     But in less than two years, you’ve made it happen, and since last week, companies here in Albania can send money to the European Union and from the European Union at greatly reduced cost, my ambassador told me that he tested the system.

On the 6th of October, he wanted to send money from Brussels to Tirana. It took this money three to four days to arrive in Tirana, and it cost him 50 euros. On the 8th of October, the day when you joined SEPA, he did the same. He sent money from Brussels to Tirana. It came within minutes, and it cost nothing, and the same is happening in Montenegro and North Macedonia.

Transaction fees in the Western Balkans used to be up to six times higher than in our union. Now joining SEPA will save your companies roughly 500 million euros per year. This is real money on your balance sheet, and this is exactly what it means to experience the union on the European continent in your daily lives. It is progress, not just on paper, but in practice.

And thanks to the hard work of leaders like you, Edi, and your Albanian people’s perseverance, this change is happening here and now.

Ladies and gentlemen, this example is a proof of a simple fact. The Western Balkans are now firmly on their way to become a part of the European Union. And we know what this means in economic terms, because we’ve seen it happen before. All countries that have joined our union have experienced incredible economic growth. Just think about the last waves of accessions to our union. Poland’s economy has tripled in size in less than three decades. In Croatia, unemployment has dropped from 17% to 4% in just over a decade. And the same will happen across the Western Balkans. And I’m not talking about a distant future.

Your economies are already set to grow rapidly in the coming years. And we established the Western Balkan Growth Plan exactly for that. The European Union opens sectors of its economy for your business. Here we work on reforms for level playing field, and alongside reforms comes investment.

The Western Balkan Growth Plan aims at doubling regional GDP in the next decade. So, my message to investors today is straightforward. Don’t let this opportunity pass by. The time to invest in the Western Balkans is now, and it is good to see so many of you here ready to grab the business opportunities created by closer integration, and in a moment we will be signing 10 important business deals.

Tomorrow you will discuss 24 other potential investments. And together they could bring more than €4 billion in new investments in the region. So, this will be a massive boost for the entire region. Local companies will scale up due to European investment. And companies from our union will expand their operations in the region, creating local jobs and new opportunities across many value chains.

What makes this forum so special is not only the size of the investment we are announcing. With these projects, we are bringing the Western Balkans inside our union’s industrial policy. We are opening some of our core economic initiatives to you.

I want to speak about artificial intelligence.

I also want to speak about integrating your industries into the single market. So today, we’re sending a clear signal to the business sector. If you choose the Western Balkans, you choose Europe. That must be our motto. And I want to give you three examples. The first one is on artificial intelligence. The second on clean energy. And the third on supply chains.

Let me start with AI. Let me tell you a story that started well before we could all access an artificial intelligence on our smartphones. Ten years ago, Europe was trailing behind the rest of the world in the race for computational power. We had only one supercomputer in the top ten global, but then the whole continent mobilized.

We made supercomputers a top priority of my first mandate. And today, we have four supercomputers in the top ten global. And why is this so important? Because we are using these supercomputers to develop European AI solutions. We’re setting up a network of AI factories across Europe. And these are places where our businesses and startups can develop, train, and deploy their next generation AI models.

Today, I can announce that we will open our AI factories to the Western Balkans. We will start by setting up two factory antennas in North Macedonia and Serbia, and we are rolling out a high-speed digital backbone across the whole region.

This will allow companies in all six Western Balkan countries to connect with these factories. This means that your companies will be able to access Europe’s AI infrastructure right here in the region.

In other words, the union’s computational power will be at your service. And as I want the future of artificial intelligence to be made in Europe, I want the Western Balkans at the core of it.

My second example has to do with clean energy. The development of high-class clean technologies is not only vital for our planet. It’s also vital for our competitiveness. Every business leader, every family in Europe remembers the energy crisis triggered when Russia invaded Ukraine and cut us off the gas. We all remember the shock of receiving completely unaffordable electricity bills skyrocketing prices. Together, we have overcome the worst days of these crises, including through European support to the Western Balkans. But the bills are still too high. You know what drives prices up? It is our dependency on imported fossil fuels. But we also know what brings prices down.

We must produce more clean energy right here at home, and renewable energy are home-grown energy, so they give us independence. They are cheap energy, so they bring the prices down. And they also create good jobs right here in Europe, but on top of producing clean energy. We must also get better at storing and sharing it. Clean and cheap energy must be stored when it’s abundant, and it must be able to flow freely where it is needed the most. And this is where the Western Balkans’ place in Europe becomes crucial.

You are strategically located in our continent. Your countries can become hubs to produce, store, and share clean energy with the rest of Europe. Today you are signing several investments that will do just that. From clean energy production in all six Western Balkan countries, to energy storage in Montenegro, they will bring down costs of electricity. They will also contribute to our collective energy independence.

So let me be very clear. You are building a new energy backbone not only for the Western Balkans, but you are building this energy backbone for all of Europe, and we are grateful for this innovative step forward that you are doing on behalf of the European Union.

Ladies and gentlemen, my third and final point has to do with industrial value chains. Recent years have shown that no industry should rely on one single supplier for critical input. We all need to avoid bottlenecks. So, it is vital to build more resilient supply chains, and whenever possible, this work should start right here in Europe. And many of the projects you are discussing here at this forum can fill critical gaps in Europe’s industrial supply chains.

For example, battery production for the automotive industry, active ingredients for the pharmaceutical industry, textile recycling for the fashion industry, and the list goes on and on and on. These investments create jobs and add value here in the region, but they also make the rest of Europe more resilient and more competitive, and it is our mutual interest to integrate those strategic local industries in the European single market. So how can we make this happen?

Under our Western Balkans Growth Plan, we are building a single market highway. The goal is to bring local industries into continental supply chains. We will do this with regulatory integration and with industrial alliances between companies in the region and in our union.

We will start with priority sectors, where you should feel the benefits of membership in our union even before you join. Across the board, my point is the same. Investing in the Western Balkans means investing in a future continental market of 500 million people. That’s the message we must send. And the message is that your local projects have a European dimension and a European customer base.

So, the business case is compelling. The return on investment is promising for you, for the Western Balkans and for all of Europe.

So, ladies and gentlemen, at every step that the Western Balkans takes towards our union, new opportunities will emerge, and you, the CEOs and investors in this room, have a central role to play.

Your perspective is vital. So please, during this conference, tell us what you need from us to unlock new projects. Tell us where you see the greatest potential for growth. Tell us where your priorities meet ours, so that we can move forward together, because the trajectory of this region is clear. The future of the Western Balkans is within our union. It is up to all of us to make it happen.

Thank you very much for being here today. And long live Europe.

Thank you very much.