{"id":437525,"date":"2025-10-13T18:45:54","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T16:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/10\/13\/allargamento-von-der-leyen-in-albania-per-spingere-gli-investimenti-tirana-e-sulla-strada-giusta-verso-lue\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T21:50:42","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T19:50:42","slug":"enlargement-von-der-leyen-in-albania-to-push-investment-tirana-is-on-the-right-track-towards-the-eu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/10\/13\/enlargement-von-der-leyen-in-albania-to-push-investment-tirana-is-on-the-right-track-towards-the-eu\/","title":{"rendered":"Enlargement, von der Leyen in Albania to push investment. Tirana “is on the right track towards the EU”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Double public appearance in Tirana today (13 October) for Ursula von der Leyen<\/strong>. In the morning, the Commission President held a bilateral meeting with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama<\/strong>, praising him for the Balkan country’s progress towards EU accession<\/strong>. In the afternoon, she then met with regional and European businessmen to encourage investment in the region<\/strong>, which is increasingly integrated into the twelve-star single market. <\/p>\n

“My first message is very clear,” said the head of the Berlaymont at the end of the face-to-face meeting with the Social Democrat premier: “Albania is on the right path towards the European Union<\/strong>,” she said, complimenting the “extraordinary and exceptional acceleration<\/strong>” registered in the last “three or four years” at the level of pre-accession reforms.<\/p>\n

\n

Glad to begin my annual tour of the Western Balkans in Tirana.<\/p>\n

Albania is on the right track towards the EU.<\/p>\n

With record-speed acceleration in the past three years.<\/p>\n

We are ready to support you every step of the way. pic.twitter.com\/tLX6Ndh369<\/a><\/p>\n

– Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) October 13, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

Tirana is running fast <\/a><\/span>towards joining the European club, and so far five clusters of negotiating chapters<\/strong> out of a total of six have been opened. “We expect to open the last one this autumn<\/strong>,” said von der Leyen, welcoming the commitment of Rama and his government to “close the negotiations by 2027<\/strong>.” It is “an ambitious goal,” she acknowledges, but a feasible one. After all, she recalls, Albania is already fully aligned with EU foreign policy<\/strong>, unlike, for example, the Serbia of Aleksandar Vu\u0107i\u010d<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

Rama himself, answering questions from reporters, defended this ambitious goal. “We went through some difficult moments<\/strong>” in past years due to obstructionism by some member states, the premier said, but now “we are experiencing a new reality in relations” between Tirana and Brussels, even a “total alignment<\/strong>.” <\/p>\n

“For our part, we have to complete all our tasks in order to succeed,” he explains: “Every task that is successfully completed,” he says, “makes Albania stronger and much more functional<\/strong>.” To the point that, he argues, the entire negotiation process “is for us a democratic state-building process<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

\"Edi<\/a>
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama (photo: Dati Bendo\/European Commission)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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But it does not end there. “Getting closer (to the EU, ed<\/em>) is not only a matter of geopolitics,” von der Leyen continued, but “it is also a smart business move<\/strong>.” Brussels allocated \u20ac6 billion to the region as part of the Western Balkans Growth Plan<\/strong>, an instrument specifically dedicated to driving the economic development of the countries in the area in return for the implementation of pre-accession reforms<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

“The doors of our single market are open<\/strong> to your companies, and our companies get a wider common market<\/strong>,” von der Leyen explains. And she announces that a new cheque for almost \u20ac100 million<\/strong> is about to be drawn for Tirana. “Now it is a matter of moving on to the implementation phase<\/strong>,” she notes: to implement all the reforms and access the disbursement of the remaining funds of the Plan<\/strong>, worth a total of “almost a billion.” Albanian citizens are already benefiting from the country’s inclusion in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) and <\/span>will soon benefit<\/b><\/a> from European roaming <\/b>for mobile internet browsing.<\/p>\n

Of economics, specifically, von der Leyen spoke in her second appearance today. “All the countries that have joined our Union have experienced incredible economic growth<\/strong>,” she said, addressing the audience of entrepreneurs and investors<\/strong> from the countries of the region and the Twenty-Seven, gathered for the first EU-Western Balkans Investment Forum<\/strong>. And so will the states in the area, she promises: “I am not talking about the distant future,” she assures, but about the “next decade.” <\/p>\n

The mechanism is clear: “Together with reforms come investments<\/strong>,” she explains, as companies will know they can operate on a level playing field and free competition.\n<\/p>\n

Von der Leyen confirms that the trade agreements signed today (around ten) and those under discussion tomorrow (another 24) \u201ccould bring over \u20ac4 billion in new investment<\/b> to the region,\u201d acting as a driving force to double regional GDP between now and 2035.<\/p>\n

\n

Above all, she continued, “with these projects we are bringing the Western Balkans into the industrial policy of our Union<\/strong>.” For example, regarding artificial intelligence<\/strong> (Brussels wants to build “AI factories” in North Macedonia and Serbia) and clean energy<\/strong> (the Western Balkans are to become hubs of production, storage, and transport, forming <\/span>a “new energy backbone” for the Old Continent). “If you choose the Western Balkans, you choose Europe<\/strong>,” von der Leyen concluded. The near future will tell whether his appeal will be heeded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Commission President begins her annual tour of the Western Balkans by meeting Prime Minister Edi Rama and business leaders. Brussels promises dazzling economic growth in return for pre-accession reforms<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":437510,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[31262,28103,26891,25836,25882,27456],"class_list":["post-437525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-albania-in-2","tag-edi-rama-en","tag-eu-enlargement-en","tag-investimenti-en","tag-plan-of-growth-western-balkans-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437525"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":437526,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437525\/revisions\/437526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}