Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at meeting with big business executives to launch project idea on setting up Albanian Solidarity Fund:

Thank you very much, grateful of your presence!

I apologize for my unnatural late coming, yet I was attending a ceremony hosted by our German friends on the Unification anniversary. I am really pleased with your prompt and positive response to come here together and launch a conversation about an idea I believe whose time has come.

Of course, today is not the day to jump to conclusions, but it is the day to embark together on a process and understand each other to the end about taking the social responsibility to a whole new level. Unfortunately, because an overcharged atmosphere, of course not because of your fault, but primarily because of the politics, many in this country are unable to properly appreciate the tremendous contribution that all of your business ventures, the big business in Albania, make to the families in this country.

While serving in this office, I have had the opportunity to meet and getting to know many of you accomplishing your social responsibility and I am grateful that many of you showed readiness to cope with the damages in the wake of the powerful earthquake that rocked the country some days ago. Without paying compliments, prominent examples have been set by many of you, showing that being successful and becoming wealthy through talent, hard work, productivity, performance and your imagination and generation more income than the rest of the society doesn’t absolutely mean that you are disconnected from the society and it shouldn’t be translated into indifferentism towards the needy people. And for the sake of truth, an increased number of families feel better today, because a beloved member of their family has returned back home safe and sound after receiving medical treatment abroad thanks to your valuable contribution.

The reason I would like to share with you today ideas whose time has come is exactly related to the indispensability that given the positive examples set by many of you, the society better understands and closely grasps the value you embody as a community, as well as to ease this entire heavy burden unjustly weighing on the shoulders and image of the successful entrepreneur and of anyone of you here, who are randomly vilified as if being wanted people, so that we together open a whole new chapter by donating and providing for the poor and needy people. This would be a mutually agreed mechanism so that we move from the spontaneous voluntarism of many of you.

This mechanism would provide for a natural rapprochement between this higher class of the society and a wide range of people and a broad community.

I believe I wouldn’t exaggerate saying that the sentiment to the big business and companies, the sentiment to those who do more and earn more could possibly degenerate into a social cruelty for all wrong motives.

On the other hand, I don’t think believe I would exaggerate it, so to say, would be largely impossible to see any of you declining readiness to join and help to make this mechanism operational together, not as a volunteer, but voluntarily adopted by everyone.

I would not like to recall the throw past history’s bonnet over the windmill, with the character of the wealthy people being identified as rich landowners and the enemies, or when destroying and eliminating entrepreneurship was a king of national pride, extracting from it a 1953 book title, when a leading economy expert wrote about the social responsibility and his idea gradually attracted great attention and became constant part of the big companies turning into one of the essential mechanisms of sustainable economic development, which has also been highlighted by the United Nations’ Committee on Environment and Development.

In the early 1980s, France approved a so-called solidarity tax, which was levied on individuals with personal income estimated at a certain limit. A decade later, Germany imposed a tax on wealth, as a progressive solidarity tax, even at a higher rate on businesses, aimed at fostering all progressive forces, where, of course the companies take part in the society we have chosen, to reconstruct Eastern Germany. In 1995, a Pan-European formalized mechanism was found under a joint declaration by the European business community, opposing social marginalization by the then European Commission President Jacques Delors, a declaration that has been already turned into a genuine institution as part of the European business network on the corporate social responsibility. This network’s primary task is to promote certain public interest issues through its annual contributions.

In 2018, LinkedIn spend millions of dollars to support construction of refugee camps all over the world.

Starbucks invests millions of dollars each year in a program to combat illiteracy.

Coca-Cola allocates a specific budget earmarked for women rights protection and empowerment.

Bosch invests in programs to alleviate and combat poverty and promote social inclusion.

IKEA supports construction of school buildings in poor and remote areas and so on and so forth.

I am not here to tell something you don’t know, but just to avail myself of this opportunity and emphasize that, yes, it is true that many Albanian companies do the same here. But, if the social responsibility for the companies I just mentioned, or hundreds of thousands or millions of other companies all over the world, is not merely a positive, but also a motive for public pride. In other words, I would like to propose you the idea of establishing an Albanian Solidarity Fund to help people in need.

The basic idea about ​​this fund doesn’t imply an additional tax to be collected by the state budget, but creation of a structured mechanism of cooperation between government and big business, or more precisely between government and big entrepreneurs. So between the government and you as individuals.

Next, the idea is to agree that by setting an upper base, with each of you sharing an equal burden under this solidarity mechanism, which could well be 2% rate on your personal dividend, and not on the company’s dividend, as I earlier stated.

The mechanism won’t be controlled by the government, but by you. The government will forward the people’s needs and together with you, as part of a board you will elect and will carry out whole process, including transparency over the contribution made by each of you, will determine the emergent projects that need to be developed immediately.

Certainly, our ambition is not just to create a closed circuit and include a proportional mandatory contribution inside this closed circuit and then develop these projects by using the amount of the collected contributions. Our ambition is that together with the big business we create the nucleus of a national leadership on behalf of the social responsibility and the Albanian Solidarity Fund, which means that this Albanian Solidarity Fund becomes an open address for donations from domestic and foreign companies and individuals, donations from our compatriots, or this country’s friends, who might not be Albanian nationals, but investors in Albania, or just friends who are willing to provide their contribution. This fund should turn into a kind of a moral locomotive.

It may sound an idea that completely runs counter the absurd myth of the oligarch, the money launderer or all other heinous epithets that have nothing to do with you and have been deliberately conjured up just to incite hatred for you, without taking into account the direct consequences of this epithets for you, without taking into account the fact that thousands of families make their living thanks to you and hundreds of other businesses.

Nobody acknowledges that many wouldn’t be able to feed their families without you; No new houses would be built without you. Many other basic things, without including other services. I am talking about basic things. I and each of you can say it, but it would be insufficient. Time is high for everyone to express and say it through the power of example and direct appearance to the public opinion.

Of course I wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t take this idea to discuss it with you if I was not to believe it was time and if I didn’t know time is high, because none of these words sound strange to your ears. The call for contribution doesn’t sound neither aggressive, nor absurd, because you are all doing this in some form or another.

Developing a culture of solidarity, establishing a culture with everyone giving a hand to others, when the other is falling, or when the other needs a hand to rise to his feet, is not a process to begin today and is neither a process that ends simply and simply by taking this step only. It is a long process and, above all, a continued education process for many aspects of a society that for the sake of truth is ready to embrace the idea of solidarity and is very sensitive when watching someone appearing on TV screens thanks to extraordinary individuals in the human and solidarity organizations and initiatives, like the ones “A different Weekend” and “Albanians for Albanians.

What I do think is missing and is unfortunately further deepening, also due to the social commitment of the abovementioned organizations –as there are many other humanitarian organizations, but the two are widely known by the public – is the idea that all these contributions, all these demonstrations of solidarity come from people who have nothing to do with you and business. The sense of aggressiveness against the representative of a big company, or against this “oligarch” grows. And you know quite well that such sense of aggressiveness is growing and is being nurtured at a point that certain individuals show up on TV channels to speak on behalf of the society and freedom, on behalf of independent people, calling even for actions, including setting your businesses on fire, setting banks on fire and then assault you and your own homes.

It would probably be understandable if we were to live in a reality where a group of wealthy people make decision about the society, decide about whatever the Parliament adopts, but there could be nothing else way to far from truth and the reality than this. Just like it is absolutely not true the idea suggesting that a group of people possess everything, or any businessmen or businesswomen face no problem of whatsoever, but they generate revenue and profits only. I know quite well that there is not a single individual in this room who doesn’t experience even absurd troubles when dealing with the public administration. The idea is that this group of people have every door opened is not realistic.

All these things should be told everyone that something important must change and it should change for both sides, if we are to call them parties for reasoning purposes. Just like the way they have taken a conflicting position just for the sake of a criminal propaganda. On one side, the other rest of the society, and on the other, all enterprises, big companies, executives, mostly Albanians who started everything from scratch like everyone else and have gradually reached where they stand today, not because someone took them by the hand, nor because someone offered them indulgences in exchange of certain services, but because they had more imagination than others, more talent than others, more courage than others. It’s as simple as that.

What is fundamental is whoever thinks is on top – and I can say it from my own experience and this applies equally to anyone at the to, let alone to someone who is on top executive position of a big company that should feed hundreds of thousands of families every month and, with their work, production and contribution to the economy, guarantee hundreds of thousands more families – knowing very well that being on top means being in the middle of it all, means to be the first to take a hit at any moment against the normality of the atmosphere, in every respect.

To conclude, I would like just to underline that however advanced a state might be it yet cannot escape traps set up by the public administration. So true is the case, that I am not refraining from reiterating it for all of those, who, sometimes, or every day, whenever I talk about the co-governance platform and the direct contact between the government and the common citizens, they say this is because the state has failed to accomplish its duties. But every U.S. Congress member has also hired a staff dealing with the citizens’ complaints only. Whom they complain about? God? The ocean?! Or the limited lifetime?? No, they complain over the problems they encounter when dealing with the state offices at any level.

The Municipality of Tirana used to receive at least 96 000 letters when I used to serve as Tirana Mayor. We succeeded in replying to every single letter, yet, if the Municipality of Tirana is to receive 96 000 letters a year, would you ever imagine how many letters are sent to the U.S. Congress and Senate, without the ones sent to other levels of the public administration.

By moving to a new stage and establishing a letter-free communication, but just a click, we provide ourselves the opportunity to help common citizens. A recently launched section of the co-governance platform has become available to business community and from now on you will no longer need to knock on the office doors and instead forward your complaints via the platform and entire administration and the government will be set in motion.

Yet, however advanced a state might be, it can’t escape the administration’s trap. The surveys conducted by the World Trade Organization show that solidarity funds enjoy an advantage or create an advantage in improving the spending efficiency, as well as in terms of the relations between the system, which collect taxes the taxpayers themselves. Because on the one hand these funds give voice to the business, where they will be invested and how they will be invested without going through tenders and budget procedures, and on the other hand, they give business a face in relation to the administration and the tax system itself.

The rampant and frenzy propaganda against the big earners is not an accidental one. On the other hand, this is a relation that needs to relax and the Solidarity Fund will play an essential role in this process allowing everyone to both contribute and ask for accountability.

Thank you very much again for attending this meeting! This is just to open this conversation. We will organize a quick and efficient process to draw your opinions, as many of you have gone through such experiences and know quite well what it is about and may provide very valuable opinions. In the meantime, in order for this joint business-government facility to be a well-structured one and not an imposed instrument designed in the government offices, but a jointly developed instrument and then also jointly used, it will be totally under your complete supervision. The government has to play the role of the mediator only between you and the needy people by presenting the problems that the government thinks need to be addressed through concrete investment in benefit of poor families, children who need urgent help and in benefit of small communities.

Thank you very much and congratulations to everybody as no new taxes will be imposed!