Reducing roaming tariffs set as first target of Regional Economic Area: Harito for Argument

Albania’s national coordinator for the establishment of the economic regional area, Milena Harito, while speaking with journalist Eni Civici for SCAN’s show Argument, explained that a tangible initiative in this regard is the elimination of roaming tariffs between the six Western Balkan countries.

“The European Union no longer has additional tariffs, so roaming is the same as the communications within each member country.”

“We want to do the same thing for the six Balkan countries, and according to our findings, most of the operators’ traffic is between European Union and regional countries. The impact of the removal of roaming tariffs for countries in the region is not too high for operators, which is normal – the goal is not to harm operators, on the contrary the aim is that they develop the market.’

“The aim is for everybody from Albania going to Kosovo, or any Kosovar coming to Albania, or any Serb going to Montenegro to not pay any extra fees from what they pay when they are inside their country of origin.”

“Each country must make its own changes and then the six countries sign bilateral agreements for reducing roaming tariffs.”

As far as deadlines are concerned, Harito has explained that the objective is the adoption of the law in Albania within the first semester of 2018.

“My personal objective is to finish this by the next prime ministers’ meeting which is expected to be held in Britain.”

Western Balkans regional economic area is expected to establish a better geographical distribution of businesses, and it also aims to be based on regional investments as well as on a new strategy in terms of capital markets.

Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, all hoping to join the European Union, launched the project at a meeting with EU officials and financial institutions in June in Trieste.

The aim is to create a single market of 20 million people with support from the EBRD, which has so far invested 10 billion euros ($11 billion) in the region.

SCAN

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