First, I would like to
extend my heartfelt congratulations to the President of
the General Assembly on his election. I wish him every
success in leading the work of the Assembly at its
sixty-sixth session. I would like to express my
gratitude to his predecessor for his invaluable
contribution. May I also take this opportunity to extend
special thanks to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for
his excellent organization of this session and for his
wise and determined leadership at the helm of the
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United Nations over the past few years. I wish him the
utmost success over the four years ahead.
Our world today is experiencing major and
complex crises that threaten the peace and stability of
several regions and our planet as a whole. However,
this year’s spring was a great and historic one for
Africa and the entire world. More than 125 million
oppressed people stood up with courage, determination
and sacrifice and overthrew tyrannical regimes in five
countries in Africa and opened the gates of freedom for
their nations.
As a representative of a country that only 20
years ago brought down the Hoxhaist dictatorship —
the worst that Albania and Europe had ever known — I
would like to cordially welcome and salute the
representatives of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, South Sudan
and Ivory Coast who are present at this Assembly
session. Today, we pay tribute to the thousands of
citizens of those countries who with great courage and
legendary bravery lost their lives in order to liberate
their countries from ruthless tyrannies and who made
their countries, the African continent and the entire
world more free and more just than ever. With their
sacrifices, however, those who fought and fell in the
name of freedom have delivered a sacred message to
the very hearts and minds of all oppressed people on
our planet: Be not afraid!
On the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the
communist dictatorship, despite the unquestionable
difficulties inherent in building a democracy based on
market values, Albania has continuously affirmed that
for the individual, our society and our nation as a
whole freedom is the greatest of all assets and riches.
Twenty years ago, Albania was one of the three
poorest countries in the world, plagued by extreme
poverty and chronic starvation. Today, Albania belongs
to the group of countries with middle to upper income
levels. Formerly a totally hyper-collectivized country,
today it has the smallest public sector in Europe, with
more than 84 per cent of its gross domestic product
(GDP) coming from the private sector.
Twenty years ago, human rights and freedoms
were forbidden under the country’s Constitution.
Today, Albania is a country with a functional
democracy, freedom of speech and free elections and in
which there is full respect for minority rights and
religious tolerance par excellence.
Albania was the most isolated country in the
world. Now, it is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty
alliance and makes its contribution to peace and
stability in the region and beyond, while remaining
firmly focused on its path towards European Union
integration. Today, Albanians travel freely throughout
Europe, while the number of foreign citizens who have
visited Albania for tourism and other purposes has
increased, from 300,000 in 2004 to 3.5 million last
year.
Recently, during this period of major European
and global financial crises, Albania’s economy
remained one of the few in the world that did not
experience a recession. The United Nations Conference
on Trade and Development estimates that global
foreign direct investment decreased by 37 per cent
from 2007 to 2010, while the same source confirms
that in Albania it grew by 316 per cent from 2006 to
2010.
Over the past few years, Albanian exports have
grown by 300 per cent. Unemployment has decreased,
and so has poverty, by a margin of some 30 per cent.
Our economic model is based entirely on economic
freedom. Last year, that freedom suffered a major
setback worldwide, whereas in my country it increased
by 16 per cent.
The Albanian economy is not detached from the
global economy. In fact, the opposite is true: being a
small economy, it is linked to and affected by it. That is
why I believe that four main factors determine its
performance.
The first factor is a small government and public
sector. Albania’s public administration and public
sector are at least 50 per cent smaller than those of any
other similarly sized country in the region and beyond.
Furthermore, I am pleased to state that my Government
ranks among the top 10 Governments with the lowest
level of interference in the economy.
Secondly, Albania is a country of flat-rate taxes.
At 10 per cent, its fiscal burden is the lowest in
Europe. The increase in fiscal freedoms and the
successful fight against corruption allowed our country
to double its budgetary revenue from customs and
taxes in four years’ time.
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Thirdly, we invested heavily in infrastructure to
stimulate growth. My Government has spent 8 per cent
to 10 per cent of our GDP on road infrastructure alone,
three years in a row. A total of 8,000 km of new roads
have been constructed, more than in the entire history
of the country. Within the next two years, Albania will
have a new and modern road infrastructure that will
allow our citizens as well as foreign visitors to reach
our capital, Tirana, from any part of the country in
60 per cent less time than previously required.
Fourthly, we have made it easier to open a
business or expand an existing one by putting in place
an efficient digital one-stop-shopping system for
business registrations, licences and permits, and by
drastically reducing bureaucratic procedures.
Yet the debt and the euro crisis are hanging like
the sword of Damocles over our national currency, the
lek, and our economy. I take this opportunity to call
upon the countries of the eurozone to take into
consideration the effects of the crisis on our economy
and others that are closely linked to the euro.
The greatest desire and fondest dream of all
Albanians is to see Albania become a developed
country. I know that the road ahead of us is not
smooth; it may be bumpy at times, but it is also the one
that will take us higher and higher. I am convinced that
it is a righteous and a sure path of hope by which the
dream of a fully developed Albania will come true.
To achieve that dream, the Government of
Albania is committed to sustainable development.
Developing countries and emerging markets such as
that of Albania face countless difficulties, but they also
have the advantage of learning from the mistakes of
developed countries and being able to avoid them.
With that in mind, we are determined to turn Albania
into a small superpower of renewable energy in the
region. With its rich water resources, Albania
resembles a small Norway on the Balkan peninsula.
My Government has already signed with the private
sector a concessional contract for the construction of
220 of the 450 hydropower stations that are to be built.
Companies from all over Europe and the rest of the
world are already engaged in that process.
Additionally, major natural wind platforms exist
throughout the country, and the Government has given
and is giving licenses for the production of thousands
of megawatts of electricity by wind parks. Albania is
also one of the sunniest places in Europe, and the
Government is determined to exploit solar as well as
geothermal energy.
I believe that in addition to the major efforts
necessary to achieve an international legal framework
to prevent global warming and lower greenhouse-gas
emissions, we must speedily reach an agreement
stipulating that a percentage of the aid that generous
donors are offering to support this cause be used for
the purpose of supporting private-sector companies
that are focused on renewable energy projects. Such
funds could be used to cover the cost of the loan
interest incurred in realizing renewable energy
projects. I am sure that they will increase manifold the
production of renewable energy in the very near future.
To combat climate change and improve
environmental conditions, forestation is also very
important. The United Nations Billion Tree Campaign
has been met with a successful response by many
countries and deserves credit as a first important step.
However, our potential is much greater.
The Government of Albania has started an
ambitious programme aimed at taking advantage of our
country’s potential in terms of fruit trees. We intend to
plant, in the next eight years, some 50 million olive
trees and around 200 million nut trees of different
varieties. The project, which started two years ago, is
subsidized by public funds. I am pleased to inform the
Assembly that this project is moving rapidly ahead and
that it has given rise to a real and unprecedented tree-
planting passion on the part of my fellow citizens.
Albania will welcome any and all help from the United
Nations and its Member States to successfully
complete this project.
Albania fully supports the Open Government
Partnership initiated by the President of the United
States, Barack Obama, and the President of Brazil,
Dilma Rousseff; that is why we have joined the
initiative. Our efforts towards an open Government
have as a primary objective the project entitled
“Albania in the digital age”. In a short time, we have
expanded access to the Internet to all our schools and
have started offering free Internet service to every
citizen in all post offices throughout the country.
A total of 2.1 million Albanians have availed
themselves of this opportunity and have surfed the
Internet, many of them for the first time in their lives.
This has helped increase the percentage of the
population in Albania using the Internet from a mere
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4.8 per cent in early 2006 to 60 per cent today —
roughly two thirds of the population. Free Internet
service will continue to be available in all post offices
and in some additional offices to be opened for that
purpose. Moreover, the Government is fully committed
to making super-broadband Internet available over the
next two years and to guaranteeing one-stop-shopping
services to citizens throughout the country.
We believe that the digital age is above all the
age of transparency. Based on this belief, Albania two
years ago became the first country in the world with a
100 per cent electronic procurement system certified
by the United Nations. That system has led to a sixfold
increase in participating public bids, reducing
procurement costs by 27 per cent. Today Albania is a
country featuring e-tax, e-customs, e-university
admissions, and e-business registration and e-civil
status registry. The Government intends to offer all
those services and others in a one-stop-shop context in
the very near future.
E-government and transparency strengthen
democracy, and our law also guarantees free access for
our citizens to all acts, decisions and public
expenditures of the Government. In order to strengthen
the role of civil society, my Government has for the
past two years had a specific budgetary provision in
that respect that is entirely administered by an
independent board of civil society.
Albania has excellent relations with its immediate
neighbours and, in general, with the countries of the
region. We would like to develop and consolidate
further relations with the Republic of Serbia as well. I
am very pleased to inform the Assembly that the
Government of Kosovo possesses an equally strong
will in the area of good-neighbourly relations and has
shown assiduous commitment and seriousness in the
process of negotiations in Brussels. The International
Court of Justice decided in July last year in The Hague
that Kosovo’s declaration of independence was in full
compliance with international law.
The Republic of Kosovo has been recognized by
more than 80 States, and I take this opportunity to call
upon the rest of the States Members of the United
Nations to recognize the independent republic of
Kosovo, which has become, in fact, an important factor
for peace, stability and cooperation in our region. I also
call upon Serbia, which went through the General
Assembly to ask the opinion of the International Court
of Justice, to adapt its position in line with the decision
of the Court, thus demonstrating that it accepts and
respects international law in its entirety and not only
those parts that serve its cause.
In accordance with President Ahtisaari’s package,
and in close cooperation with the European Union Rule
of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), the International
Security Force in Kosovo (KFOR) and other
international institutions present in the country, the
republic of Kosovo has put in place and implemented
the highest standards in the region and beyond as
regards the freedoms and rights of minorities.
The most worrying problems for the Serbs in
Kosovo today are the tensions created and orchestrated
for nationalistic purposes. Serbian cultural heritage in
Kosovo is today more secure than ever. It is a precious
cultural heritage not only for the Serbs in Kosovo but
also for Albanians and all other citizens of Kosovo, as
well as for Serbia, the entire region and the whole of
Europe. I would like to reassure the representatives of
the Member States that the only threat Serbs in Kosovo
face is that of being exploited to serve the purposes of
a bitter past that must not ever return.
Meanwhile, inter-ethnic relations in all areas
where Serbs and Albanians live together in the same
communities are very good. However, the parallel
structures funded by Belgrade in the three Serbian
homogeneous communes in northern Mitrovica, where
no other ethnic groups reside, have turned them into a
safe haven for organized crime and smuggling and
trafficking of all sorts.
The Government of the republic of Kosovo is
determined to implement the rule of law in those
communes and engage in effective border and customs
control, in full compliance with the agreement reached
in Brussels and the Ahtisaari document. Those efforts,
however, have met strong resistance from criminal
groups and organized gangs that, with weapons and
other means, are doing all in their power to block the
rule of law. We have supported and will continue to
support the Government of Kosovo, EULEX and
KFOR in their efforts to strengthen law and order in all
the territory of the republic of Kosovo so that peace
and stability will prevail.
I also call on Serbia to do its best to remove the
obstacles to the flow of goods across its border with
Kosovo, and to respect the agreement signed this
month in Brussels, which forbids the embargo and
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provides for freedom of export and import for both
countries. We believe that respect for the actual borders
in the Balkans is a fundamental condition for lasting
peace and stability. Belgrade’s efforts to keep parallel
structures of authority in place in those three
communes demonstrate that it still believes in
reshaping borders in our region based on the failed and
long-outdated idea of ethnically clean countries and the
concept of Greater Serbia.
The Republic of Serbia, in accordance with
international law, has arrested the butcher of the
Balkans and, albeit too late, his lieutenants as well, and
has received the due appreciation of the international
community for doing so. However, I invite Serbia to
cooperate in the search for and return of the remains of
1,500 men, women, children and elderly who were
abducted from their homes and massacred in the
territory of Serbia only because they were Albanians. It
is very important to cleanse one’s country of those who
have committed crimes against humanity, but it is also
important not to hide or cover over the graves of their
victims.
Here yesterday, President Tadic characterized as
true the accusations raised by Mr. Dick Marty
regarding the alleged traffic in organs and mass
killings committed by Albanians in the territory of
Albania. Regarding that report, I would like to state
here the stance of the Albanian Government. Dick
Marty’s report — as acknowledged by the Chief
Prosecutor of Serbia, Vladimir Vukcevic, who has
stated that his own report is fully included in Marty’s
report — is in fact a cut-and-paste of the Vukcevic’s
report. Every person who reads that report sees that it
raises many allegations that are not at all based on
facts or the truth but rather motivated by sinister
intention.
The Dick Marty report — or rather let us call it
the Dick Marty/Vukcevic report — does not produce
even a single fact. I must clarify that in fact it
synthesizes Carla Del Ponte’s memoir, which seem to
have derived from the same unique source. In the
thousands of pages of transcripts of the interrogation of
Slobodan Miloševic and his accusations against
Albanians, there is not a single word of accusation on
his part about organ trafficking or mass graves in my
country. The purpose of the report is to divert attention
from the decision of the International Court of Justice
in favour of the independence of Kosovo.
Nevertheless, the Government of Albania has
officially asked its delegation in the Council of Europe
to vote to endorse the report for the sole purpose of
opening the door to a thorough international
investigation. My Government sent an invitation to
EULEX, and we welcome the fact the EULEX
accepted it. I assure everyone here that my country will
fully cooperate fully with EULEX and its task force so
that the truth about such inventions will be made
known. When I read them for the first time in Carla
Del Ponte’s memoir, they reminded me of Agatha
Christie. I want the EULEX team to come and clarify
everything about those fictions.
Despite all this, our region has made
extraordinary progress, and efforts to cooperate in
building a common future in the European Union are
prevailing every day. My country is doing its best and
is investing heavily in infrastructure to create new
links, new roads and new lines of communication with
all our neighbours. I believe that the time has come
when Albanians and Serbs will try to start archiving the
past and looking for a common future in the best
interests of their nations.
From this rostrum, President Abbas made his
request to the General Assembly for Palestine’s
membership of the United Nations as an independent
State. While my Government fully supports the idea of
an independent Palestine, I believe that unilateral
action will not be helpful. That is why I call on our
Palestinian friends to support the statement made
yesterday by the Quartet, in which it drew a clear road
map for action to address this fundamental question of
our time.