Albanian Premier Edi Rama denied as usually the news Albania left the Summit of Trieste without any investment. The Summit for the Western Balkans took place in Trieste on July 12, but Albania did not manage to attract any investments for its infrastructure. Despite that, the Prime Minister, with his directress for the foreign investments by his side, had the courage to address angrily to the media reporters, saying that Albania was second concerning the projects it profited during the summit.

But Albania’s failure for projects in the Summit was revealed by Italian Ambassador Alberto Cutillo in a meeting with Albanian businessmen in the Embassy, on June 30, where detailed information was introduced.

“There are no concrete infrastructure projects for Albania, unlike the previous summit, where there was the project of the railway Tirana-Durrës. We hope to have projects in the next summit. Anyway, the summit is important, because important projects for further development could be identified”, the Italian Ambassador said at that time.

The Summit is over no and all the official data show the truth is exactly as Ambassador Cutillo said on June 30.

This is the full truth of the Summit that reveals Premier Rama’s lie.

The European Union approved €194.1-million grants for the sectors of road transport and energy in the Western Balkans. The financing was part of the Agenda of Cooperation for the period 2015-2020, with a total value of €1 billion. So far, nearly € 501.3 million has been used to support 20 different projects in the region. A quick glance on the grants share shows that Premier Edi Rama and his team failed badly in securing new investments.

Serbia, with €78 million for the interconnection line with Bulgaria and the railway from Nis to the Bulgarian border, will be the main beneficiary of the €194.1 million fund that will be invested after the summit. Macedonia comes second (not Albania, as Rama declared) with a grant of 70 million Euros for the railway network. Then it is Bosnia Herzegovina that took the remained share of 46.1 million Euros for different infrastructure projects.

Since 2015, Albania has profited only 10% of the €501.3 million fund approved from EU, equal to only 50.1 million Euros of investments. Albania comes below Kosovo, which has profited €56.1 million from EU in the framework of the Agenda of Cooperation for the development of the infrastructure.

SYRI.net