Prime Minister Edi Rama has appealed to the EU to support Albania and the Open Balkans with funds, while calling for the EU not to repeat the same mistake it made with the Balkans at the time of the coronavirus. Rama said that the region is expecting a difficult winter, as a result of the energy crisis, and that EU aid and funds will be very important for the management of the energy crisis. 

"I want to emphasize it once again. Yesterday was the most beautiful day of the Open Balkans. It could have been a bad day for the Balkans. We could talk about tension, conflict, risk of war. This is the choice we have made. Let's look forward to bring people closer. Let's understand each other better.

This winter is likely to be the hardest we have encountered. We have not had easy winters in the Balkans. Today, as we speak, there are hours of power outages in Kosovo. This is a fact. In countries like Britain, France or Germany, plans are being presented to cut off the energy. These plans include turning off the lights after 10:00 p.m. Closure of any restaurant activity. Same as during the pandemic to save electricity. The EU should not repeat what it did during the pandemic. They all remember very well how the Balkan countries were forced to run to China, Russia, Turkey to start the rescue operation of nurses and doctors for vaccination. The EU closed itself and saw only within the walls of its own castle. And EU leaders have admitted that this was a shame."