ROME (ITALPRESS) – There are excellent friendly relations between Italy and Albania, not only between peoples but also on the level of diplomacy. This was confirmed by Anila Bitri Lani, ambassador of the Republic of Albania to Italy, in an interview with Claudio Brachino for the Italpress news agency’s Diplomacy Magazine TV format.
“There is an excellent, excellent relationship between the two countries, which we have been able to build even on a historical level and which has been strengthened recently with strategic partnership agreements,” Bitri Lani said. “Italy is a friendly and brotherly country. Ours is the best of relationships, it is the model to be promoted in bilateral relations also in the diplomatic world.”
The ambassador explained that “there is a historical substratum that has provided and facilitated the progress and evolution of relations, creating an interconnection not only economic, commercial, and political in the last 35 years, after the fall of communism in Albania, but also because we have been able to bring human relations, two peoples, two cultures closer, and maybe also because Albania’s cultural model has always been the Italian one.”
Bitri Lani calls that of Italy-Albania relations “the best of models. The work of the diplomat, of the ambassador represents a bridge. It serves to establish, to build, to have values conveyed. These are economic, social, human ones, and politics strengthens and facilitates the pillars of this bridge. Working in Italy, being the ambassador of Albania to Italy, first of all is a great privilege, you work in a friendly and brotherly country and our work is to follow a dynamism, a speed, an intensity of relations. You have to try to find, not only the time, but also the energy to maintain a balance, to accompany all the actors that strengthen or make up the relations.”
Economic relations between the two countries have always been very intense: “Statistics tell us that there are 3,000 Italian companies operating on Albanian territory,” the ambassador explained. In terms of numbers, Italy is the first investor with the presence of companies on the territory, in addition to this we must remember that there are almost 30,000 companies on Italian territory with Albanian citizens as owners and 70,000, also on Italian territory, in which one of the shareholders, of the partners, is an Albanian-Italian. Then out of a community of more than 400,000 Albanians living in Italy we also have 300,000 new ones, that is, of Italian citizenship and Albanian origin, therefore with dual nationality, an added value. The way of doing business in Albania is common to the Italian way of doing business, so a communion is created, they become more interconnected every day.”
Italy has always been a great supporter of Albania in Brussels: “Italy has supported from the beginning our aspiration to join the European Union, a constant, continuous support, it is today and will be tomorrow as well,” the ambassador explained. We are working for Albania to become a member of the European Union in 2030, it is difficult but not impossible.”
“Yesterday the pension agreement with Italy was ratified, another thing we did together for the civil rights of our Albanian community but also of your Italian-Albanian community. This is very good news,” Bitri Lani then concluded.
– Italpress Photo –
(ITALPRESS).
