Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at “Ukraine – Moving Ahead” on the Margins of the Munich Security Conference:

 

Richard, thank you for not making the same mistake you did with others. But while listening to your mistakes I thought about a much bigger mistake when Albania played France in Paris they played the Andorra national anthem and we were all shocked. After a while the French realized they had made a mistake and then they apologized to Armenia for having put the wrong anthem. But there is even worse.

I was eleven when the OSCE was founded and Albania was not only the sole country to not participate, but it was a country that bashed the OSCE as an escalation of the degeneration of both the West and the Eastern world.

And what is striking is that the very principle foundations of the OSCE, the sovereignty, territorial integrity, are today questioned even more than they were at that time. And this is a huge challenge. A huge challenge at a time when terrible things are happening to the people.

I had the privilege to visit President Zelensky and the Ukrainian authorities in Kiev, but also I visited the Stanica Lughanska area and I would very much like to bring all the East Germany’s far-right voters to see for themselves how life can be, while complaining how bad they are in Berlin. It is really an apocalypse now with thousands and thousands of people having to cross this bridge that thanks God is has been finally built.

This very bridge was built thanks to President and thanks to my predecessor as the Chairman-in-Office, yet the bridge has the width of an ambulance. And averagely around 10,000 people cross that bridge in extremely weather conditions and most of them are elderly people that have to go to the site where there is located the functioning Ukrainian state to withdraw their pensions. And guess what. The ambulance is not allowed to drive straight to the hospital, because there is still a possibility to have an agreement on that and terminally-ill people have to walk.

But I have to repeat what has been already said that thanks to the President and the new government in Kiev there are some improvements in terms of reaching out and efforts to move forward in terms of implementation of what it is already the basis of all this, and that is the Minks Agreement which might not be beautiful, and it is not, but it is an agreement that has been signed in precise circumstances and there is nothing better than that for the time being. There are also improvements in implementing the Normandy Format.

Now I just want to attract your attention on one thing. Improvement means better than the worse. But just imagine. After the Normandy Format meeting, there have been recorded 20,000 incidents and dozens and dozens of casualties.

The OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission is doing a great job, because it is the only presence that is somehow accepted and respected by both sides. In the meantime, the hostilities continue, especially during the nighttime, because of the lack of capacities to monitor more consistently the entire border stretch.

In that respect, I would take this opportunity to call upon every country. Because it is very fancy to talk about how much we support Ukraine and still we do, but supporting people living in that hell is important too. So, it would not cost mountains of money, but it would cost an increased contribution from the OSCE by putting some more money on technology and guarantee surveillance during the nighttime, as well as to guarantee that nobody plays around and tricks around about the incidents that are happening there.

And the last word I would say is the following: Yes, all this is just like everyone said. But let’s not fool ourselves, because it is not about Ukraine only, but it is Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova. And it is indeed not just about Ukraine, Georgia or Moldova, but it is about our civilization and it is about what we all represent and Russia.

So, as far as Russia – and this is what history should finally learn us – will live amid fear of being surrounded and there will be no possible final solution. And as long as Russia will live in the fear of being surrounded by NATO and the EU and being suffocating in this circle, things won’t improve. There is also another element. President Zelensky has not sufficient time, as he has just 4 years to serve. The other side has a lot of time. So, this should be also taken into account. And of course, this is not about the OSCE or myself. Of course, it is not us the ones to lecture the others, but it is the great powers, the leaders of our coalition to think about it. They should think about it, because while we are discussing, I was told that Mr. Pinchuk has gathered people about Ukraine 16 years ago. It was 16 years ago, yet it doesn’t look to me that things are better 16 years later. This is open for discussion. It was exactly 16 years ago when you gathered being very preoccupied about Ukraine, but 16 years later there is a war going on. So, I am not going to ask what it would be 16 years from now, but Richard can help us for that.

Thank you!

*Simultaneous interpretation