Pristina, 25 July 2023
The Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, participated today in the launch of the platform dedicated to the diaspora, “Taste Kosovo”.
In his address, the Prime Minister, while welcoming them, stated that like every summer, Kosovo welcomes them with open arms and a heart full of warmth, and that their return to their homeland, to their homes, marks a special moment, symbolizing the everlasting bond between us and them, so strong that we are not two parties, but the same people.
“As a Diaspora, you have played a very important role and continue to play in terms of the economic and social, political and cultural development of Kosovo,” expressed the Prime Minister.
This year, the Prime Minister announced that we have reached another level of coordination and cooperation with our compatriots. Their ideas to offer innovative ways for including the diaspora in the political, social, economic, and cultural life of Kosovo have begun to take shape, and many programs have been developed keeping their ideas and suggestions in mind, programs such as the Citizen Diplomacy Program and the Week of Culture in Kosovo. And for that, the Prime Minister thanked them sincerely!
Now, he further added, the “Taste Kosovo” platform this year includes many more activities, partners, and various collaborators, making this platform an important companion of your stay in Kosovo, not only during the summer, but throughout the year.
In this event, the attendees included the Deputy Prime Minister, who is also the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Mrs. Donika Gërvalla-Schwarz, the Minister of Justice, Albulena Haxhiu, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Liza Gashi, and Deputy Minister Daulina Osmani from the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, responsible for sports, Getoar Mjeku from the Ministry of Economy, and Agon Dobruna, from the Ministry of Finance, Works and Transfers.
Prime Minister’s full speech:
Dear Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Ms. Donika Gërvalla-Schwarz, dear Donika,
Dear Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Liza Gashi,
Honorable Minister of Justice, Albulena Haxhiu
Here we also have three other deputy ministers, including Daulina Osmani from the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, responsible for sports; Getoar Mjeku from the Ministry of Economy, and Agon Dobruna, from the Ministry of Finance, Works and Transfers.
Also, we have other officials here from our institutions whom I sincerely greet and thank for jointly organizing this very important evening for our ex-pats.
As Donika also said, our compatriots, our emigrants, we consider them to be within the people, within the nation, even though they are working outside the homeland.
Like every summer, Kosovo welcomes you with open arms and a full heart. Your return to your homeland, to your homes, marks a special moment and symbolizes the everlasting bond between us and you, so strong that we are not two parties but the same people.
As a Diaspora, you have played a very important role and continue to play in terms of the economic and social, political and cultural development of Kosovo. And at least in one occasion, you had an impact on the crucial development of our policies for education and industry. Last year, for the first time, we started with dual education, according to the Ausbildung model, as the Germans call it, but also a good part of Switzerland and Austria. With four profiles, in four vocational schools in three different municipalities. This year however, we expect to have at least 8 times more students, 6 times more schools, 11 times more municipalities, and 3 times more profiles. We first heard about Ausbildung from our Diaspora, meaning we didn’t learn about the dual system that connects the labor market with vocational education from books, but from our experience of conversing with our Diaspora, and understood its importance for the economy, and together with associations from the Diaspora, we are bringing it to life in Kosovo.
Your contribution is noted in all sectors of the country. We are endlessly grateful and appreciative for your ongoing commitment to the development and state-building of Kosovo.
One out of three citizens of our Republic is not a resident, meaning that our Diaspora constitutes a considerable part of the population, perhaps even the majority of our economy, considering that our workforce is no less present in Diaspora than in our country.
Kosovo has a total of around 400,000 employed, and we have 400,000 Albanians in the Federal Republic of Germany alone, so in terms of workforce we do not have fewer in Diaspora than within the country. When we also take into account the capital that our Diaspora possesses, it really calls into question, in terms of the economy, who is in and who is out – perhaps we are more outside and the Diaspora is even more inside than us.
Now your comeback to your homeland, especially in the summer season, is a symbol of the everlasting connection that unites us by overcoming geographical boundaries and challenging time, we prove that even when we are physically apart, we are not spiritually and emotionally separated, on the contrary, we are precisely united by our minds, our common spirit, and our hearts.
In the first two years of our governance, we have worked diligently to address your recommendations and suggestions for our policies in our homeland. You know that we launched the “Dialogue with the Migrant” initiative, whose primary aim has been the development of a bilateral dialogue. This is about your requests and needs finding a role in the development of our policies today and guiding our work tomorrow.
Last year, we met many of you throughout almost all of Kosovo through the Diaspora Caravan activity, presenting our ideas and plans for your connection with our common homeland.
This year, we have reached a new level of coordination and cooperation with you. Your ideas to provide innovative ways to involve the Diaspora in the political, social, economic and cultural life of Kosovo are beginning to take shape, and many programs have been developed keeping their ideas and suggestions in mind, programs such as the Citizen Diplomacy Program and the Week of Culture in Kosovo. And for that, we thank you sincerely!
Now the “Taste Kosovo” platform this year includes many more activities, partners and various collaborators, making this platform an important co-traveler of your stay in Kosovo, not only during the summer, but throughout the year.
This platform will offer the opportunity for you to strengthen connections during your holidays, through various programs for your children, festivals and diverse cultural and natural activities, while enjoying the natural beauty and rich scene of art and heritage in Kosovo. This platform also allows you to be an active part of consultative meetings at various levels. From meetings in public institutions such as the Assembly of Kosovo, or various municipalities of Kosovo, to your direct participation in the drafting of legislation. You have so far directly contributed to the process of the strategy for the diaspora and other legal acts through your inputs.
Our commitment to listening to you and including your thoughts will continue. We call upon all of you dear emigrants and through you, others who are not watching, listening, or present here, to strengthen this open dialogue with your proposals, which is crucial for a better Kosovo.
In addition to the Ausbildung, we also have the project of Kosovo’s socio-economic transformation, which is the Sovereign Fund, the Well-being Sovereign Fund, which aims to turn the citizens of Kosovo, including our Diaspora, into participants in the Kosovo economy; through voting, you become a participant in the democracy in Kosovo, but through the Sovereign Fund, where we aim to index our public and private companies in the country’s economy, we want to turn the citizens of the country, including expatriates, into shareholders in our economy. So, let’s democratize the economy and make the citizen a participant, not only in the democratic aspect of electoral cycles but also in participating in our economy and the development of our country.
So we aim for a day when both local entrepreneurs and Diaspora, instead of maybe buying an additional apartment somewhere in Pristina, they buy 0.1% of the shares, for example, in Telekom, in Trepça or in the Electric Energy Corporation of Kosovo or even in the private companies which will be indexed, including maternity benefits for children, 90,000 postpartum mothers have opened bank accounts for the first time in Kosovo, 90 thousand (something missing?).
We wish for citizens to read the Financial Times and also to watch the price of metals on the Stock Exchange because they have bought few shares in Trepça, so this is our vision to transform our savings into capital for development and not just our capital into immovable property, where perhaps our expats manage to use their residence only two weeks a year in one of the Kosovo towns.
Therefore, it is very important to have as dynamic an economy as possible, and that the Sovereign Fund aims not only to have the opportunity to buy government treasury bonds as is the case now but also to demonstrate that currently you can buy but can’t sell, and we aim to make a dynamic domestic market of our Republic. Even our great-great-grandparents considered the house and land as wealth, but this is an old model that will not about to disappear, however, we need to consider shares in our public and social enterprises as wealth, which we want to place under a common umbrella, such as the Sovereign Fund. Therefore, regarding what Donika said about culture, as well as economy and our public policies, welcome and may this summer vacation be as pleasant as possible when we discuss the good work we will do together.
Thank you.
Last modified: July 28, 2023