TIRANA, February 5/ATA/ The Pact of Free Cities summit began its proceedings today in Tirana.
Attending the summit are some of the important mayors of Europe, while this global network of cities, founded by the mayors of the capitals of the Visegrad Group (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia), has as its mission the protection of democracy, freedom and progressive values.
Present at this summit are Mayor of Tirana Erion Veliaj, Speaker of the Albanian Parliament Elisa Spiropali, 20 mayors of European cities, as well as officials and representatives of several institutions in the country.
In his opening remarks, Mayor Veliaj greeted the mayors of the municipalities present at this summit, whom he described as individuals who have transformed the realities and culture of this continent.
“Over 70-80% of these cities are part of the culture of Europe, but I have a special welcome for the city of Timisoara, which is the newest city in the pact of free cities. Kharkiv representative, our sister-like city, is also here today. And Tirana is supporting the reconstruction of Kharkiv with the new school that the Municipal Council has approved, along with all the other initiatives to support our brothers from Ukraine,” he said.
Mayor Veliaj said that he is looking forward to creating new bridges of cooperation between cities during this summit while we get committed to be transformative and innovative. “We had a closed-door meeting to approve what is called the Tirana Declaration, a commitment and engagement of cities to be closer to each other,” concluded Veliaj.
