The Letter From The Consulate
No. 154.
Gentofte/Copenhagen, Wednesday 10. February 2021
Dear reader,
On February 6. Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEFA) Olta Xhaçka and the United Kingdom Ambassador to Albania Duncan Norman signed at the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs the Agreement on Partnership, Trade and Co-operation between Albania and the United Kingdom.
Commenting on Twitter on the signed agreement, MEFA Xhaçka said that the signed agreement was “a step forward in the legal framework” that “will further boost bilateral trade, harmonize the economic relations and remove barriers in trading of goods and services between Albania and the UK”. The UK Ambassador described the signing of the agreement as “a good day for trade and UK-Albanian relationship”. “Albania offers great opportunities for UK companies and investors expanding into south-east Europe and the signing of the Agreement marks a new era of increased investment in both our economies”.
In a live communication with his followers on his official Facebook page on February 4., Prime Minister Edi Rama attributed Albania’s shifting label from a hybrid regime to a flawed democracy on The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2020 to the last year’s electoral reform. Rama said that, since 2013, Albania had increased in number of points in this global ranking, and that it was now leaving behind some of the region’s countries, who are still labeled as hybrid regimes.
Read the great story of 2 love sick Dalmatian pelicans. Click here.
The Central Election Commission held a meeting on February 5, ruling on the registration of ten small political parties to the 25 April parliamentary elections. The political parties in question are the Party for Justice, Integration, and Unity, the Democratic Conviction, the Movement for Change, the Albanian Democratic Movement, Albania’s Hour, the Albanian Democratic Alliance, the Legality Movement, the National Front, the Albanian Emigration Party, and the Democratic Reform Party. Moreover, two independent candidates were also registered – Pal Shkambi for the Shkodra electoral region and Plarent Aleksi for the Berat electoral region. Other parties are the PS, the DP and the LSI.
In his address on the start of work for the transformation of the Pyramid building in Tirana, Prime Minister Edi Rama said the technology sector was one of the main areas to be included in the “Albania 2030” program the Socialist Party would present soon.
“We are preparing one of the points of our “Albania 2030” platform – a new space where the state will be a direct actor for quality education to become part of this huge market which can only expand,” Rama said. “If we put as an object the increase of the number of coders in Albania so that in the next four-five years tens of thousands [of youth] would be coders only as one aspect of the digital world, we would have a totally different basis for tomorrow’s Albania,” Read about the Pyramid project here.
That´s all for now,
sincerely,
Hans-Georg Nielsen
Albanian Honorary Consul