‘Mini Schengen’ Promoters Meet for Building a ‘European Balkans’

Prime.Minister Edi Rama, his North Macedonian counterpart Zoran Zaev and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic held a virtual meeting laying the ground for a European Balkans.
The meeting’s agenda was to discuss preparations for next summit on their Mini Schengen initiative for a regional economic area to be held in Skopje next week.
The news on the event was first released by the North Macedonian PM, Zoran Zaev on social networks on Thursday
“We are connecting and getting ever closer to make the lives of all our citizens easier and better. This is the new Balkans, European Balkans,” Zaev noted after the meeting.
Albanian and North Macedonian premiers Edi Rama and Zoran Zaev and Serbia President Aleksandar Vucic are scheduled to meet in Skopje on July 29 to advance their Mini Schengen initiative. Zaev said they will hold an Economic Forum for Regional Cooperation this time.
The three leaders are expected to change the name of the initiative in their 9th summit next week, according to an earlier statement by Vucic. The move appears to be an attempt to revamp the unsuccessful initiative launched by the trio in Serbia’s Novi Sad two years ago, aiming at creating a joint economic area in the Western Balkans.
In the first eight summits, the leaders focused on expressing their commitment to this project and inviting the other countries in the region to join in.
It is not known if the other three WB countries, that is Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Montenegro will take part in this Summit as they have preferred the Common Regional Market established in 2020 a project with the same objectives running under the Berlin Process which held its annual summit in Berlin on July 5.
There are going on many initiatives in the Western Balkans but most of them has produced bilateral projects between the promoters and relevant countries. Albania is a typical country where very few projects of this kind are carried out.
/argumentum.al