TIRANA, October 26th – Serbian civil society activists, experts and government officials gathered in Tirana this week for a two-day forum to discuss relations between Albania and Serbia with a view to a common future in the European Union.
As part of the Center for Albania-Serbia Relations, an initiative of the Albanian Institute for International Studies (AIIS) and the Belgrade-based European Movement in Serbia, the forum is another attempt to foster relations between the two Western Balkans EU candidates to normalize the U-turn in recent years after a status quo from the Cold War era just before the end of 2015 when the joint center was established.
Serbian and Albanian participants in the two-day forum from October 26th to 27th in Tirana underlined the importance of cultural cooperation to overcome stereotypes and prejudices between the two countries.
Monika Maric, Serbian, Serbian scholarship holder of the Center for Albania-Serbia Relations at AIIS, says that cultural cooperation between Serbia and Albania has grown steadily over the past ten years, but is mostly sporadic and on individual initiative.
“Although political relations often cast a shadow over cultural cooperation, the cultural exchange between Serbia and Albania is constantly growing. The collaboration is primarily based on individual initiatives, with civil society networks being the main channel of communication, ”says Maric, who speaks fluent Albanian and studied at the Faculty of Albanology at the University of Belgrade and researched Serbian-Albanian cultural relations during her three-month AIIS -Scholarship.
Persida Asllani, the director of the Albanian National Library and former visiting professor of literature at the Albanology Department in Belgrade, said she would like to see more Albanian authors translate into Serbian as the number of Serbian authors currently being translated into Albanian is much larger is.
“I really hope that people like Monika can contribute to the cooperation between the two countries,” said Asllani about her former student in Belgrade.
The Albanian writers Diana à ‡ uli and Ylljet Alià§ka also pointed out the importance of cultural exchange in order to get to know each other better and to have more writers translated into the respective languages.
The two-day forum will also discuss EU perspectives, business and media relations between the two countries.
Albania and Serbia had a three-year honeymoon shortly after World War II when the communists came to power in both countries but later split on ideological grounds. Relations between the two countries have remained tense over the last 25 years of transition, especially after the Kosovo War of the late 1990s that led to its independence from Serbia in 2008, but is now well on its way to improving as Serbia and Kosovo, which is mostly inhabited by Albanians, is also holding ongoing EU-mediated talks to normalize their relations.
Relations between the two countries temporarily reached a Cold War-era status quo in October 2014 after a drone incident with Albanian nationalist and patriotic symbols flew over the Partizan Stadium in Belgrade amid a 2016 Serbia-Albania European Championship.
A month later, Prime Minister Edi Rama paid a historic visit to Serbia, the first by an Albanian Prime Minister in 68 years, in a tense climate following the drone incident but which paved the way for the normalization of relations between the two countries are considered key players for the security, the economic development of the region and the European integration of the Western Balkans.
The Rama Vucic meetings are as common today as forums and exchanges between Serbian and Albanian civil society organizations.
Through several forums to discuss civil society, political, economic and cultural cooperation and the upcoming challenges, the AIIS and the European Movement Serbia have also contributed to mutual understanding and normalization of relations over the past three years.
An AIIS survey found that a large number of Albanian residents believe that relations between this country and Serbia are normal and likely to improve in the future, and such improvements are in the best interests of both countries.
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