Well, distinguished fellow leaders from our neighborhood, Commissioner Cos, dear Marta, colleagues and friends coming from Brussels and the neighborly countries. Welcome back to Tirana, the city where faith in Europe runs so high that even an old EU veteran like Eurobarometer can't help blushing like a teenager in love.
I'm delighted to see this summit open with a clarity that I was very satisfied to feel just in the arrival of everyone and during the working dinner yesterday. The Western Balkans have chosen to move forward together with a growth plan as our shared road map. A road map not to Brussels but to the freedoms and the opportunities of the European single market where our citizens belong by history, geography, and destiny.
Better late than ever, one could say, especially after all those occasions where and when the trains of regional cooperation departed and we stayed on the platform, wrestling with old disputes instead of simply buying a ticket to the future. But let me put it differently, paraphrasing Jean Monnet in a way that fits perfectly with the spirit of our growth plan. Europe is not built by waiting for it. Europe is built by doing. And we are here not to postpone today's work and wait for another time, but to build together what is ours to build today.
Declarations and statements matter only when they touch real life. They matter only if they break the distance between policy, language, and daily life. People don't feel integration. They feel lower cost, easier travel, faster borders, better jobs, freedom of movement. So today, let me list some concrete facts. They look like seven doors opening between the Western Balkans and Europe.
Roaming charges between WB6 and EU will end in 2026. Our citizens will feel the next breakthrough directly in their pockets. We removed WB6 internal roaming. We reduced tariffs. Now with the Commission finalizing the legal basis, roaming like at home between the Western Balkans and the EU, the end of the different roaming system is coming. Negotiations begin early 2026. Albania will complete full AI alignment by April 2026. And we are ready. This will be our next success after SEPA, which already cut transaction costs by five to ten times and made money move as fast as a message.
Roaming isn't about phone bills. It's about removing one more artificial border between our people and Europe. Digital identity, our quiet revolution. Soon digital identity in the Western Balkans will mirror the European model. The commitment we renewed in Skopje, interoperable digital wallets, is not a tech project. It is our entry ticket into a borderless digital Europe. I must tell you with pride that Albania's digital identity is ready and starting from the new year will spread and will become part of our life.
One identity, one access, one digital life crossing the region and increasingly across the EU. And when the EU will start with it in 2027, we will be there waiting for the EU.
Three, border crossing points: from bottlenecks to engines. We all know the Balkan border experience. Sometimes it moves, sometimes it sleeps, sometimes it meditates. But we must end those days. We have agreed with the EU on 16 priority border crossing improvements, including 11 EU–Western Balkan crossings and five SEPA crossings. Today is the day that, with the contribution agreement between the European Commission and the World Bank signed to unlock the finance and the expertise.
This means shorter queues, faster tracks, lower logistics costs, higher competitiveness. A track delayed is GDP delayed. A track moving fast is an economy moving fast. This is very, very simple.
Four, Wi-Fi for the Western Balkans. Europe's digital infrastructure is in every corner. The Wi-Fi for the Western Balkans program is no longer a promise. This is happening. 394 municipalities are selected: 61 in Albania, 114 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 33 in Kosovo, 24 in Montenegro, 63 in North Macedonia, and 99 in Serbia. The first networks go live this year. From village squares to city centers, from schools to tourist hubs, our citizens will feel Europe every time their phone connects. This is what integration looks like when it becomes visible in the daily life of a grandmother in Cukës or of a student in Pristina or of a family elsewhere in the region.
Five, the reform agenda: 618 steps towards Europe and counting. This region has never attempted reforms on such a scale. Never. 618 reform steps adopted under the growth plan, 414 million euro already disbursed, 251 more reforms in progress, 88% of all steps actively implemented. And these reforms touch public finance, rule of law, governance, energy, digital transformation, business climate. We are not closing the convergence gap with just speeches or meetings or what we celebrate — the chapters we open. We are closing it with reforms. Tremendously boring on paper, very tiring in life, but absolutely transformative in reality.
Six, infrastructure: building Europe's arteries in the Western Balkans. Corridor 8, the spine connecting Albania and North Macedonia, which is now critical even for security in Europe and has become a NATO security corridor, is being upgraded. 344 million in railway investment, 112 million in new road infrastructure. This is not a line on a map. It's a plug-in cable into Europe's value chains. When Europe relocates supply chains, the Western Balkans must be not spectators but a destination. And this is what we are doing together.
And seven, the Western Balkans: Europe's new investment frontier. For decades, the region was treated as a problem to be managed at its best, or at its worst as a war to be dealt with. Now investors see something very different: a market, a workforce, a geography, and a political alignment with the European Union. Recent investment events say it all: seven investment declarations, 24 investment pitches, 10 memorandums of understanding between European and Western Balkan companies, four sustainable partnerships just in one conference about investment.
Behind every number is a job, a salary, a family, a hope. When investment comes, of course, migration will decrease. When economies grow, borders, of course, will matter less. When opportunity grows at home, Europe becomes a destination of cooperation, not an escape route. The Western Balkans are going from risk to opportunity. For years, we were called unstable, unpredictable, too complicated. But the facts today say the opposite. We are proving with reforms and investments that the Western Balkans are not Europe's vulnerability but Europe's opportunity: a young market, a skilled workforce, a strategic location, a region that wants to grow with Europe and not at Europe's expense. We are moving from the margins of the map into the center of our European story, also through the economy.
Europe is not something we are waiting for. Europe is something we are building. Everything discussed today leads to a simple truth: the Western Balkans don't ask favors. And this is something one can feel and can hear in every statement of every one of the leaders around the tables. Nobody's looking for favors. Nobody's crying for some sweets. Everyone comes with a pride to offer values and to offer sweat and tears. Thanks God, no blood is needed.
We are not begging to enter the European Union. We are proving that we are every day more ready. We are not talking the talk. We are delivering the results. And let me say it even more sharply: in the Western Balkans' convergence, Europe becomes stronger. If the Western Balkans stagnate, Europe becomes weaker. There is no version of a stronger Europe with a weak Balkan region in the middle of it.
So I want to conclude by telling our people: we are not walking toward Europe with empty hands, and let alone like beggars. We are walking with achieved results, with reforms delivered, with investments secured, and with our homework done in every step. And we'll keep pushing until the Western Balkans enter the European Union not as guests, but as contributors to its security, to its economy, to its future, and by no doubt, to its safety.
Because everyone knows that Marta knows better. For your own safety, pick a Balkan guy. And this always works. And for Europe's safety, pick the Balkan guys. We can be Europe's bodyguards, and then Europe will feel much safer and much relaxed in her sleep. Thank you so much. And Marta, the floor is to you, and please confirm or deny what I said about the Balkan bodyguardship.
