Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at the reception held with ambassadors and diplomatic representatives accredited to Albania on occasion of the end-of-the-year holidays:
Dear Excellency, good evening and welcome!
It is a pleasure to be with you tonight, first of all to thank you for this year that we passed and worked together, and to wish you for the new year just like you would like it for you, your families and countries.
Also, as the tradition of this end-of the-year meeting requires, I am pleased to share with you my view on the development of a year in Albania, in the region where we live and a little beyond.
I believe it is not too much to say that the world today, and specifically our societies are going through a general stir, which is complex and not easily readable with the instruments we have been having available for years. At the geopolitical level, there is a number of multiple crisis and serious challenges at every global and local level, which have put a strain on the ability of states and governments to find together the ways and means of maintaining balances and strengthening peace and security with the known mechanisms.
We are all witnesses of a year like this one that is ending where the rights and freedoms have continued to be severely violated in countries and regions of the world, but they are now present as shocking facts in the eyes of all of us, due to the interconnection that allows us to know in real time everything that happens anywhere in the world.
In a world where terrorist blindness keeps producing macabre effects, where disastrous conflicts keep characterizing the Middle East, where tension in the east of our continent continues to be ubiquitous, but where a phenomenon of great concern such as discrimination and hate speech against the other, the anti-politics rhetoric and populism to the limit of threat to democratic values and standards are expanding their influence also in developed countries and societies.
This is so true, that we, the Albanians who were seen by many of you here until a few years ago, as rare representatives of a conflict and aggressive politics, do not feel so rare anymore, because the community of politicians of this nature has been expanded progressively in recent years and especially in the last year. Nor any special loupe is required to notice that the pressure of the extremes on the policies of the traditional span covering the balanced representation of society is trivializing progressively the public debate, and the populist narratives are threatening the scope of the acquired rights of democratic societies.
A few days ago, a valued friend of Albania’s and a great advocate of democracy and development, Secretary John Kerry, said with concern that any deviation, however small, in the foundations of freedom is in fact, an ugly stone on the path of tyranny.
Despite this context and the difficulties around us, we have continued to invest in Albania during this year great efforts on the path which we have defined as a people and from which we have not deviated despite the big or small differences that seem to divide us on the everyday public debate. A path determined since 26 years now, of the full integration into the European Union.
When it comes to Europe, we the Albanians are not divided, and as far as our governing force today in Albania is concerned, we have written in our governance program that Europe is not a trip to go somewhere, but for the Albanians it is an interior journey to the fulfilment of a national aspiration to have a modern, democratic and economically solid state.
We have pursued a dynamic and coherent foreign policy that protects our national interest, with the dignity required by the Albanians, in accordance with our responsibilities, but in every moment in the European spirit that characterizes our political forces as the representation of a nation that has always been in this region committed and supportive of stability, based on the values and principles of Europe where we want to participate with full rights.
And in this context we work where we believe we have the opportunity to do more in strengthening regional cooperation in the area which has already been designated as the Western Balkans, but which in fact is in other words in a European area that is still outside the European Union, where efforts are ceaseless and where comprehensive approach is clearer today than ever before oriented to peace and interaction with each other. We have worked and will continue to work tirelessly in order to have our relations with all neighbours characterized by open dialogue, and with the will to build together on everything uniting us, being aware that what unites us in the interest of our peoples is much greater than what divides us sometimes.
And in terms of what separates us from time to time, we have not hesitated and will not hesitate to raise our concerns to the distant or closer past, but always with the desire to have zero problems with our neighbours. We want zero problems with our neighbours and, even when this is wrongly perceived or interpreted as if we create problems by raising unresolved issues of the past, the truth is that we do this simply because we want to zero them, and we are convinced that this is entirely possible. For it is increasingly important that the atmosphere of peace and interaction that we have today in this region, where until recently the main features were conflicts, divisiveness and the inherited animosities, must be intensified in view of a major agreement between each other and for each other.
A few days ago, we opened the Regional Youth Cooperation Office, as another embodiment of a joint regional commitment in the framework of the Berlin Process, as another example of the will to intensify contacts, to enhance mobility in our shared space, and to work together on relations which can be transformed also into concrete joint projects.
It is not the only initiative, but all these initiatives together give our efforts a new quality for a stable, structured and harmonious cooperation in view of a major objective to build on the basis of a created stability more prosperity for our people.
We have worked and will work tirelessly in order to have the common interest of a shared future for our countries prevail over everything else.
We have done what we could, but we are aware that we can do and should do even more to promote countless positive examples of friendship and solidarity which we have in our history or every day life between each other.
This applies to all countries, but first of all, in the context of this interaction, we see as very important deepening the comprehensive and exemplary cooperation in all respects with Kosovo; intensifying dialogue and freeing strategic relations with Greece through dialogue; further strengthening of a growing dynamics of cooperation without prejudice with Serbia, and also promoting positively as much as possible an improved quality of coexistence in Macedonia between the Albanians and Macedonians.
And since Macedonia is currently at the end of the electoral process, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all elected without exception, but the Albanian ones specifically, and wish them to find the strength to advance a common agenda in order to achieve qualitatively the democratic coexistence between Albanians and Macedonians, to restore on the top of the special agendas of their parties the Ohrid Agreement as the common denominator, and to ask unanimously that the program of the government, whatever it is, will be placed within the framework of the Ohrid Agreement. The Albanian parties in Macedonia have their identity and their programs. They are not obliged to agree with each other on everything, or be listed together in one camp or another, but they are imposed by the interest of all Albanians without distinction, which I believe is the interest of all the peoples in the region to speak unanimously about the only thing that cannot divide them, the principle of full equality between the two peoples in freedom, rights and obligations in the context of the common state of Macedonia.
The model of regional cooperation in this European area still outside the EU called Western Balkans, is in our view based also on promoting the continuous expansion of the areas of interaction, and on removing all non-tariff barriers, so that borders between countries in the region will be practically removed, and people and goods will move freely everywhere.
We will continue to encourage all of our partners in the region in this regard, and we will be both bilaterally and multilaterally unremitting promoters of this process started in Berlin, which is proving every day proved to be the only way for the people of the region, and we are convinced that every day, every year, we will take a growing impact, not only of trading volumes and of the economy of everyone, but in general of the ongoing Europeanization of the regional relations and coexistence.
Of course, since another year has passed, and when I have to remind myself again that there is one people in the middle of Europe, the Albanian people of Kosovo, who still continue to be prevented from moving freely across Europe, like all the others, I cannot help but share with you the shame I feel for the EU, in relation to this really so bitter, which is the truth of the people of that country, who have been prevented from being the same as everyone else, at least with regard to the right to move freely.
I believe that this ban is a significant expression of weakness manifested today not only here, but in many respects by the EU.
Whereas Kosovo, as the newest state of Europe, needs to be treated in the first place humanely just like all the other peoples of Europe because, if the liberation of energies and the development of its citizens is directly beneficial not only to them but also to the region and to an increased quality of peace and coexistence in the region, the ban of this right is beneficial neither to them nor to the EU and to Europe as a whole.
And I believe that it is worth saying something also in relation to the countries that still do not recognize Kosovo. Our challenge to peace and security is shared. Our approach may not be the same, but the enemy of all of us here in this hall is one and shared – terrorism. A safer Europe built through a more united Europe, more interconnected in its fate and efforts, more in tune within itself for increased security for itself.
Just like the entire Western Balkans still outside the EU, Kosovo is crucial for the security of the EU and of Europe’s as a whole. And if in the view of anti-European populists, expansion must be stopped in the name of security, we believe with all the force of reason that enlargement should continue primarily in the name of security. The way those countries that haven’t recognized Kosovo yet look at it, with the eyes of the same reasons of many years ago when this big and common enemy hadn’t appeared yet in the horizon – needs in our view to be updated with the eyes of the present time and of the vital need of all the peoples and of all of the countries within or outside the EU, for an increased security and interaction in the name of security in Europe.
Dear friends!
It is understood that our commitment has been and remains focused on the progress on the path of Albania’s European integration. We have neither had nor have any illusion about everything that this process implies, and this has been clear to us since before Europe began to lose clarity at EU level.
It has been clear to us that the uninterrupted continuity of our efforts, and the progress that we need to ensure through these efforts in the integration process, is as much important to Albania as EU membership itself because it is a unique process, irreplaceable by anything on a path with no other alternative, and this path is for the Albanians that of modernization and democratization of our country.
Therefore, I believe that today this is another moment where it is worth to recall all those among us, in Albania or in the community, in the great Albanian community – who look at the fluctuations of the big EU project with other countries more developed, the reasons to have harmony – that in fact there is no connection between our ambition and efforts and those fluctuations. Every fluctuation is not for us a choice between the EU and a glorious past as advocated by other highly developed countries, but it puts us in front of an impossible choice between the future and a past such that, if we look back, there is only darkness, and every light in that darkness, is a light that with much effort, with many sacrifices, with extraordinary privations in our history, has been lit up only in the name of integration with the world beyond the Adriatic. As a great poet of our Renaissance used to say, “For us, the Albanians, the sun rises where it sets”.
Therefore, I want to emphasize once again today, when I believe we are completely ready to take a new responsibility in the process of integration and open negotiations with the EU, whatever the approach of the EU in the near future when predictability has become increasingly difficult, our path towards EU integration will continue as the only path for us to have a country where the people’s fate is determined by legitimacy and institutions, a country where people’s future is guaranteed by democratic mechanisms launched on a democratic constitution.
And for this reason we have moved quickly and decisively to reach the moment when we are ready to open negotiations, and we will continue to move with determination to guarantee also the only condition for the opening of negotiations, which is the beginning of the implementation of justice reform by means of the already universally famous law of the vetting of judges and prosecutors, and at the same time to advance in each of the areas where the key priorities for Albania have been determined.
We are very clear and very conscientious that what we have done is not a reason to be pleased, but it is a reason to understand how much we can still do. If in these three-something years we have managed to show that the reforms delayed and unfinished for 20 years in a row are possible, then these three-something years allow us to understand all together how many of the things which have been unfairly impossible in so many years, can become possible if we walk firmly on the path of modernization, democratization and definitely of the Europeanization of our country.
There is no question that if we were today pleased with the results we have achieved, despite a progress report that makes us proud of the work done, we would be against the sense of history that we are trying to write together with the Albanian citizens. No, we are not satisfied even though the results in the fight against crime and drug trafficking are in the eyes of everybody. No, we are not satisfied even though the results in the fight against corruption are in the eyes of everybody. No, we are not satisfied although the results to enhance legitimacy and reduce the impact of lawlessness in our country are in the eyes of everybody. The experience had so far, as underlined in the European Commission’s report, essentially identifies clearly not only our capacity to have results, but also our great potential to have even more results.
I do not want to make a long list of the reforms we have done, but I just want to say that the administrative-territorial reform, the property reform, the energy reform, the pension reform, the education reform, the healthcare reform and a series of other reforms that have started to bear results somewhere more quickly, somewhere else more slowly, are the most significant business card of our country in the fight against corruption, which ultimately is modernization, modernization, and only modernization.
But, on the other hand, as long as we don’t being to implement the main reform which is that of justice, then this whole picture is really incomplete, and as long as we don’t take the necessary steps in this direction, then we have nothing to ask to the European Union. It’s not the EU that will determine the date for opening negotiations in these conditions where we are. It is us who can determine it, by giving the European Union the tangible proof of the implementation of the judicial reform, and start cleaning the palace of justice of the corrupt judges and prosecutors.
We look forward for the Constitutional Court to speak. I haven’t expressed my conviction that the Constitutional Court did not need the Venice Opinion in order to speak, as its history shows that when our constitutional judges want, they can, they lack neither experience nor knowledge to do the right thing.
The fact that the law was brought to the Venice Commission has raised a question in the public opinion. Now, after the Venice Commission has given its opinion which is clear to everyone, although you have seen that a political debate has started in Albania about who can translate better from English into Albanian or from Albanian into English, there’s nothing left but have the Constitutional Court confirm the opinion. The opposite would be a slap, not only undeserved, but completely superfluous in the face of the Albanian people who have been asking for justice for 26 years, and today, thanks to the generous support of the US and of the European Union, they have the opportunity to start touching the fair justice they have deserved for 26 years.
In conclusion I would like to add a few words about what is the most difficult part of the everyday life of the government, economy. It is the most difficult part of the daily life of citizens, even more than the daily life of the government, and it is definitely the most complex challenge for a government like ours, in a country like ours, in the overall context of an economy that is increasingly interconnected, and where the fates of the economy of a country are not defined merely by what happens in that country, but by many other elements.
I believe that, without being satisfied, we can be proud to have today a country that is growing steadily with an increase of 3.2% as the figures show, against an increase between zero and 1% until three years ago, and we could conclude this year with 3.4%. While next year, we can expect an even higher increase. And fortunately, it’s not the government figures that say this, as they are always controversial, but it is the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the global ranking agencies.
But, however, the math is simple. We enter a phase where we reduce public debt steadily, and increase at the same time salaries and pensions. We are entering a phase where the budget deficit is expected to be 2.5% of the gross national product, while in 2014 it was 4.8%, and when we took office it was 5.2%. We are entering a stage where we are willing to do even more, both for growth and for the neediest.
Mark Twain warned us long before the polling institutes went wrong. “We should not make predictions, especially about the future,” – he says. And since he cannot hear us and neither contradict me, I would dare to foresee that the fundamentals that we have laid in these three and something years are a guarantee that next year, which will also be an election year, where we will of course ask to renew the contract with the citizens, we will yield even more results from the reforms, and without discussion will have a more significant economic growth primarily for the families who need to see this growth in their coffers.
Just as I would dare go to the point where I can predict what the European Union will do with us next year. I believe that next year the European Union will set the date for the opening of negotiations, as soon as we show a sufficient number of judges and prosecutors out once and for all from the palace of justice.
I am very confident that we will succeed, and I am very confident that in the case of Albania, even Mark Twain will prove to be wrong in his warning that it is not a good idea to make predictions, especially about the future. If many of you, in your countries, had to reach this age, although still young, but however not so young to understand what it means to live in a rather unpredictable country, we have learned this since we were young. So, it is time for us to be able enough to anticipate our future properly in an increasingly unpredictable world. And I am confident that the forecast will be accurate.
Many thanks!
Once again, a happy new year to all of you, and thank you for everything you have done this year. I apologize on behalf of those in our administration who might have annoyed you for 1001 reason.
