Prime Minister Edi Rama started the tour of meetings with the Albanian communities in Europe. The first stop of this journey was Athens, where the Prime Minister was welcomed by thousands of diaspora Albanians who have been living and working in Greece for many years – gathered at the Galatsi Stadium in Athens.

“You Albanians of Greece are today an added value of the economy and culture of this blessed country” – Prime Minister Rama addressed the attendees, as he named this visit the most beautiful privilege. “Thanks to you, this was my most beautiful visit to Athens and I do not believe I will have a more beautiful one.” – he said. 

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Prime Minister Edi Rama:

Sisters and brothers! Thank you!

Thank you for welcoming me to your second home, in the neighboring and friendly Greece!

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this touching hospitality under such a large shelter, which you made seem so small.

Your welcoming excites me, your enthusiasm humbles me, but above all, your life and work fill me with inspiration for Albania and with great pride for you, ordinary people from all four corners of Albania, who have become an extraordinary example of the pride of our homeland in this part of Europe.

Some here in Greece were surprised, others were upset, some even said that I should not come to visit you, but maybe when they see this display of family joy, they will understand that I have not come to meet their former servants, but I have come to greet the equal masters of this house.

I have come to speak with the equal citizens of a democratic Greece, in a democratic Europe, where Albanians are no longer barbarian arrivals from the mountains or the seas, but are the representatives of a proud country that is our Albania.

Albania has finally raised its head, lowered for centuries by the violence of its tragic history, and today looks straight in the eyes of everyone with the same respect it deserves and demands from everyone.

You Albanians of Greece are today an added value of the economy and culture of this blessed country, the cradle of philosophy and democracy for 25 centuries, and with which we are connected not only as neighbors, but also from a thousand-years-long history.

 

Throughout this history, our destinies, our traditions, the paths of life and the roads of our homes, wars, dances, songs, tales, our relationships, have always been much more connected than they have appeared in the mists and dusts of the politics of our two countries.

Even today as we speak, two decades after the end of the 20th century, the appearance of our relations means much less than the reality, the intensity, the interweaving of lives and the interconnectedness of the inseparable future paths of Albanians and Greeks.

On the surface of today’s written culture, where news channels and social networks reflect only the political face of this ancient relationship, offering people folkloric nationalism and populist chic to warm their electoral bellies and to put the citizen’s brain to sleep, it seems as if between Albania and Greece there have been only eternal problems. Meanwhile, daily life between Albanians and Greeks, outside the noisy cafe of short-term political interests and beyond its dazzling media reflections, continues with normality, activity and productiveness.

Albanian exports to Greece last year increased by 1/4 more than the previous year. While in the first months of this year, Greece ranked third in the list of trade partners of Albania. Thanks to the commitment of economic operators here and there across the border, we are in the final steps of creating the first Albanian-Greek Chamber of Commerce and Industry with headquarters in Athens.

Thanks to the encouragement of the enlightened people of this community in Greece, everything is ready and only the approval of the Greek government is awaited to open the center of Albanian culture, for which our government has provided the relevant funds. Thanks to the growing real-life demand of peoples living outside the glass of political-media storms, the number of travelers moving to both countries has increased tenfold.

Albanians have long been in love with the magical shores of Greece, but conversely, more and more Greeks are discovering touristic Albania where they feel like their second home. Greeks have been, are, and will always be welcomed in Albania, not only to relax, but also to work, open shops, set up companies, start investment lines and benefit from a much lower tax regime than here. Albania is so hospitable to the Greeks that it does not create any trouble for them, on the contrary, it creates all the conditions, even for some misunderstood Greek politician to protest there, then come and lose the elections here.

You Albanians of Greece are the biggest, strongest evidence of this connection with millions of unbreakable threads of destinies in the history and daily life of the two peoples. Just like the Albanian Greeks of the Greek minority in Albania, the Albanian citizens of the Greek minority in Albania, a precious treasure of our society which operates today within a framework of legal guarantees for minorities that “de facto” makes Albania one of the most progressive examples among all the countries of the Council of Europe.

Those Greeks of Albania have their problems without question. We must and will do more for them, but the big truth outside the small field of political games within this Balkan square, is that no problem of theirs is different from the problems of all Albanian citizens.

 

In a country like ours that is progressing daily but where the wounds of the negative legacy of the near and distant past are still not completely closed, never, under no circumstances an ethnic Greek in Albania, for at least the last 10 years, has been in trouble because of his nationality. Never, in no case, have the ethnic Greeks been arbitrarily denied by the Albanian state their right to believe, their right to language, their right to property. Never, in no case have Greek citizens of Albania been denied by the Albanian state the right to vote or to choose because of their ethnic origin.

Talking about properties, you are the national representation of Albania, from Tropoja to Konispol, from Shkodra to Korçë, from Dibra to Durrës and those among you which have a house or a land from those areas where the distribution of titles of ownership has not yet been done for 1001 reasons, I can say that, this problem is a problem of Albania and is not only for the Greeks of Albania. To search for and discover such cases you have to delve into the darkest recesses of nationalist culture, where there is no boundary between history and myth, fact and prejudice, official documents and commissioned articles.

Albania has no other claims towards Greece other than mutual respect, mutual care for the compatriots living in our two countries, mutual relations of friendship and good neighborliness. Albania sees Greece as a natural strategic partner, either for the issues to be resolved between us, or the great challenges of this new era, threats for the Balkans, Europe, the democratic world, we see them as major reasons to get closer, to get to know each other better, to find the most reasonable solutions for both parties. To project together in the future, continuously nurturing trust in each other and strengthening the ties with each other at every step.

Above all, we believe that the complexity of our relations in this time of local and global challenges can never be an incentive to drown in every spoon of water that everyday politics brings to the courtyard of our coexistence. No! This complexity should be a great incentive for Greeks and Albanians to be finally and mutually convinced that our destinies are inseparable and for those who wish to represent Albanians and Greeks to be finally convinced that they cannot find the answers to the future in the past, but to the present of the connected destinies of the Greeks of Albania with the Albanians of Albania, with the Albanians of Greece, with the Greeks of Greece.

You brothers and sisters came to this ancient cradle of ancient Greek civilization to escape the ruins of the communist regime and its curse of extreme poverty. You crossed the mountains. You slept in parks, in churches, on street benches. You went out before the light came out to wait in the squares like horses in the bazaar of the living thing. You bloodied your hands and crushed your back with the hardest jobs! You faced all kinds of brutal expressions of the arrogance of the rich neighbor towards the poor neighbor. You did two or three jobs, to alleviate hunger with one dish a day, and put aside the money of the two uneaten meals!

You experienced the humiliation of the black brooms of the late 20th century when they pulled you from your homes at night to be deported in Albania, as in a new movie from a very old time of the violent displacement of our ancestors from their homes in the north of Greece.

Many of you changed the names given to you by your mother and father in order to obtain work documents and enroll your children in school.

You Albanians of Greece saw your children drowning in tears because they were the best in school, but they were not given the right to the flag ceremony and the child’s fault was that he had come from the nest of two-headed eagles, and was not born under the protection of the white cross. But here you are. You, the Albanians of Greece, never surrendered and triumphed because you are the blood and soul of a nation that went through terror, but no power or injustice of this world could undo it from the face of this earth.

Step by step you came out of the darkness of survival as stigmatized residents of this country into the light of life as equal citizens of this country, with your values of trustworthiness, productiveness, and correctness towards the foreigner. You managed to stop being a stranger in this country. You made your place in Greek society by gaining the respect of your employer, the trust of your neighbor and the dignity of a free man in a democratic country. You came, you fought, you won! And never forget it; by law and by tradition, Greece is yours today as much as it is the Greeks themselves. Together with the Greeks, you Albanians are the Europeans of Greece.

Today you have here your houses, shops, businesses, well-educated children in the education system of Greece, you have your friendly circle where the Greek and the Albanian are no longer distinguished, your contributions to the Greek economy with honest work and with the taxes you pay to the state Greek. Meanwhile, you return more and more often to your homes in Albania where you have supported all these years, with your invaluable financial help, your elderly parents, brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces, and where you have also started to invest, especially in villages, your savings. I know and I want to tell you; not all differences are squared away forever for everyone, I know things do not always go right for everyone. I know that the ghosts of prejudice and the shadows of contempt occasionally appear, but I also know that the old times of the Albanians of Greece, will never turn back.

Not only the Greek society, the greater part of which, thanks to the sensitivity of the common people of this nation that is like two drops of water to ours, became your support from the very beginning of your heroic odyssey in search of a new life in Greece. The decision-makers of this country today are fully aware that Greece needs you as much as you need Greece.

Greece and Greek Albanians have become irreplaceable for each other. Whoever still doubts this truth, doubts the sun that rises every day, while whoever opposes this truth, falls headlong into a mirror that reflects only himself.

My friends, the borders between our countries have always been political, which certain elites have set for their not-so-sublime goals, sometimes to feed the delirium of provincial grandeur, violently stopping the time of the people, sometimes to show their love for their homeland by nurturing hatred for the homeland of others, sometimes to pump the muscles of their power against internal rivals by creating external problems, but never, unfortunately, never calculating the damage and lost opportunities from the division of two peoples raised since the dawn of humanity, side by side like two children in the same yard.

Therefore, the political borders between our two peoples have never been spiritual borders, not only because the spirit of peoples knows no borders, but because no artificial division can undo a great, heavy historical truth which is marked in our memory shared collectively for tens of centuries; this truth is that our common culture, Mediterranean and Balkan, was formed long before our states were born.

The model of the Hellenic city-states extended from Athens to Sicily and from Anatolia to Durrës, long before today’s Greeks identified as Greeks or today’s Albanians as Albanians, in times when history was the history of cities and elites, urban centers, communication networks, trade, and diplomacy.

Therefore, those who today approach our common cradle of history in this geographical basin, with today’s categories and boundaries, are a step away from falling into the pit of nationalist primitivism, where the snakes of wars, conflicts, quarrels, divisions, which have bitten us, poisoned us, made us bleed, knocked us down and hindered us many times, on our common and inseparable path as Albanians and as Greeks.

Let me give you an example, a very simple example among the dozens, hundreds and perhaps thousands of disputes between the oligarchs of Epidamnus, the Durrës of today, which is mentioned by Thucydides as one of the causes of the beginning of the Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta in a classic text that today is taught in every high course of international relations, can anyone tell me which of the present-day states that did not exist at all belonged to Epidamni, Corinth or Korkyra at that time? It is impossible.

We have overcome common sufferings, we have faced the same challenges, we have inherited our traditions in social systems that have risen and fallen, sometimes uniting our paths of survival, sometimes separating them. During our common journey in the sky of the Ottoman Empire, what are considered as today’s Greek and Albanian centers, spoke in their own languages, but they also spoke in other languages, such as Turkish, Hebrew, Armenian and many others, and of course also in the languages of western cultures such as French or German.

It was only after the crisis of empires that today’s Europe began to emerge, the Europe of sovereign states, where independence became necessary to survive and where the heroes of different peoples participated in wars.

What is there a better example than the legendary heroine of Greek independence Laskarina Bouboulina, born in an Istanbul prison, of Arvanite origin, a legendary freedom fighter of Greece, the first woman admiral in the world, at the head of a naval military fleet.

Now who is stopping us from being proud together, with the Greeks, for the contribution that this heroic woman, originating from a family where Albanian was spoken, has given to Greece. 

Therefore, why is it not simpler to value the old history of our peoples as a fabulous treasure, which belongs to all of us, exalting with an open mind in the eyes of our European children, not manipulating and using it with the wrinkled hands of Balkan politics, to which this quarter of Europe has seen only strife and fights.

Is it not more honest for our nations to separate, to separate without doubt, without temptation, what belongs to the peoples, from what belongs to the states. What belongs to the states from what belongs to the parties and what belongs to the parties for the next elections, from what belongs to the future generations for the quality of peace and the quantity of prosperity?!

Is it not more logical and more productive for Albania and Greece to share in a close, strategic partnership, as two neighboring and friendly countries, the path of democracy, prosperity and continuous fraternization of Albanians and Greeks, instead of consuming time and energy of the 21st century for the political calculations of some parties here and some parties there, that are just like living fossils of the 19th century?!

How many more centuries must we, Albanians and Greeks, live in this neighborhood of modern Europe, to learn and accept without any nationalist complex, without any sense of superiority over each other, a simple truth, that not only the spirit of peoples knows no borders, but also that our common Mediterranean and Balkan culture was formed long before languages became swords and flags were raised like spears to divide and bring peoples into wars, conflicts and confusion.

Then how is it possible, that instead of making that simple truth the common ground where the efforts and resistance of our peoples are linked, in a world where existence of humanity is threatened with destruction, from global warming or, God forbid, from nuclear madness.

And instead of cultivating and harvesting the fruits of common orchards under the example of their peoples, where since the dawn of time there has been fertile ground for the best of Europe’s science, knowledge, and art, the political elites in the history of the neighborhood between us as states, – Greece two hundred years, Albania, a hundred and a few years, – have dug and dug and dug for so long, so blindly, so mercilessly, the trenches of conflicts, they have raised so many black clouds of dust and malice towards each other – and they have muddied the neighborhood so badly with the mud of resentment, that we have thirty-four years of friendship, but it seems as if we cannot wait to burn the entire mattress, for just a flea. 

We could have sown, and we could have reaped in these thirty-odd years many more fruits of joint success as neighbors, as friends, as strategic allies, using our assets, opportunities, energies, as complementary sources of power growth and the well-being of our two peoples, becoming a shining example for the entire region, instead of entering from one seasonal cycle to another, from stalemate to stalemate, where after autumn comes winter and after spring, which lasts very little, we do not know if summer ever comes.

“On the third day of my arrival in Athens”, – the founding father of the Albanian state, Ismail Qemali, writes in his memoirs: – “I was received in audience by King George I, who showed me great friendship and care – a care with which he honored me for life”.

“The hospitality offered to me everywhere, in that capital that I loved and admired since childhood, touched me so deeply that it seemed to me that I was in my homeland and I was going from party to party. My stay in the capital of Greece brought old sympathies to the surface, and politicians of Albanian origin spoiled me with gifts of friendship, as if they were responding to the inner call of an early memory. They seemed puzzled for a decision, whether I and my fellow patriots should cooperate with them for the good of Greece, or whether they should also take the men of their second motherland, for a movement that supports the renewal of their country of origin.

I was so proud and happy to notice how the national feeling was so deeply rooted in the Albanians, despite centuries of different political-social conditions. I had a great pleasure in the morning walks under that wonderful sky of Attica, listening to Albanian being spoken in the streets and in the bazaar, but the greatest sense of pleasure was given to me by what the king’s assistant told me, which came from one of the heroic families of Albania, when we were passing from the antechamber to the royal audience; “Do it”, – he addressed me, “don’t give yourself up to these hotheads, do the best to liberate Albania so that we can return and unite there”.

And to close with this part, because we have not seen each other for a long time and my speech is not as short as usual, our founding father continues: “Although political developments took a different direction from that of our feelings, I am convinced that sooner than later, the common love of Albanians and Greeks for freedom, will lead them towards understanding and the creation of a counterbalance in the Balkan Peninsula for the benefit of all”.

You guessed it, the wise old man of independence published these memories in 1920, when the relations between our two countries had become very difficult and unfortunately the genius vision of Ismail Qemali was beyond the horizon of the times that followed his meeting with the King of Greece.

The Second World War, the hermetic closure of Albania in the ninth circle of the communist hell, divided Europe in two, and postponed until the end of the 20th century the possibility of restoring this vision of our founding father to the table of relations. The 20th century is also gone, the middle of the third decade of the 21st is coming, and instead of Albania and Greece being today a triumph of the neighborhood, turned into a strategic, geopolitical asset in the panorama of the Balkans and an attractive example for all other neighbors to follow, for a peace that produces well-being, security at the table of our interstate relations, the law of war between Greece and Albania is still in force. 

That law of November 10, 1940 determines what is done with the property and citizens of countries in a state of war, and on that same day, a royal decree legislated the state of war with Italy and Albania. In 1947, Greece ratified the peace treaty with Italy and the state of war ended. While with Albania the decree of the state of war and therefore the consequences of the law of war, remain in force today, even though in 1998 both countries approved the treaty of friendship. How is it possible between two countries that have signed a treaty of friendship, that have been together in NATO for 15 years, that the state of war from 84 years ago has not yet been abolished, along with its consequences?

In these years, my government and I have tried as much as we could, to remove this absurdity from the table of our relations, just as we have tried to address as fairly as possible, through dialogue, with understanding, all the remaining issues between our countries, because I firmly believe that if there is good will and mutual determination, all disputes can be resolved without waiting for another 84 years to pass.

The truth is, my friends, that in the current Prime Minister of Greece I have found the most open interlocutor of these 10 years, meanwhile it is impossible for me not to tell you, that the approach and opinions of our left-wing brothers of the Greek opposition were very difficult for me to understand, except as an internal political war, but it is not my job to advise them, even though we are actually in the same European political family, nor my right to interfere in their affairs, even more so when in Albania we also have an opposition that does exactly the same thing, every time it deals with Albania’s foreign affairs, unsuccessfully appealing to the sources of electoral nationalism, but simply, I would tell them today in a very friendly way, since I am also here in Athens and they probably listen, that when they intend to mention Albania and comment on the positions of the socialist government of Albania, it would certainly help in the formation of their opinion, to have a direct communication with their political brothers in Tirana. 

On the other hand, it is just as true that although my interlocutor today in the Maximus palace is the most open and most interested in closing the chapter of such, the work to solve them has progressed slowly and has been stalled from time to time. However, I have faith, I really believe that the best between Greece and Albania is ahead, and I am armed with this faith, with the readiness for us to solve all the issues between us, as forward-looking Europeans of the new century. In the meantime, I am really sorry for the fact that cynicism has prevented the progress that we have made, from being visible.

Finally, with the current government, we have managed to open negotiations at the expert level for the pension agreement with Greece. It is an agreement for which until yesterday we did not see any light at the end of the tunnel, while we believe that after the implementation of the agreement on pensions with Italy, we also have a very positive reference, because in fact the one with Italy and this one with Greece are both complex agreements due to the weight of the Albanian factor in both countries.

Also, and I believe that this is of great interest to you, we have also opened a bilateral dialogue at a technical level on the issue of residence permits and the procedure for obtaining citizenship by naturalization, and there is a lot of progress and I am confident that very soon you will receive very good news.

Another common strategic goal agreed between our two governments is the coordination of the needs and economic opportunities of our two countries in the integrated European energy market. 

Today, work is being done on the project of the second transmission line 400 kV Fier – Arachtos, a project of strategic importance for both countries which not only consolidates the transmission network, but also strengthens the physical interconnection of Albania and Greece in order to fulfill the conditions of integration in the European market of energy by creating certainty that prices will be more competitive, but also by expanding the export capacities of energy produced from renewable sources in both countries.

Another beautiful page of cooperation we have opened with our proposal and the agreement with the Greek government is to create a cross-border integration, the national park of Vjosa, which in the coming years will be a more powerful engine of our new tourism industry, turning into an integrated European park where there are no borders, but the nature that unites us since we came to this world triumphs.

The Albania of 2030 will have gained its complete energy independence and will be a net exporter of energy. This means that not a single penny from Albanian taxes will be spent to buy energy abroad, but on the contrary, more money will enter Albania’s budget from the sale of energy produced in the country.

We are currently preparing a special program for all Albanian immigrants who want to invest their savings in the villages and mountainous areas of Albania to turn their houses and lands into links of our new tourism chain. We have examples from Thethi and Valbona, in Tepelena and Përmet, where with the savings of emigration and thanks to the knowledge, experience, work culture acquired away from home, those who have returned from exile have opened guesthouses that are full of tourists from which they bring much more income to the balance sheet at the end of the year than the salary of emigration.

The Albania of 2030 will be a country of free choice, no longer forced by adversity or impossibility. The decrease of the population of Albania to 1.5 million is linked with the phenomenon of emigration that in different times and cycles has affected all the countries of this world. Albania came out after half a century in prison, from a prison where the keys were thrown into the sea. 

In this ancient history of European civilization where the fertility of enlightened minds, the superstitious association of gods, or ordinary people who dreamed of becoming gods, and where the history of this common basin was born in this city, the only system of government that returns freedom to the individual while respecting the will of the majority, baptized by the ancient Greeks with the blessed name of democracy, the new history of the Albanians of Greece is the contemporary chapter of an exemplary affirmation of the eternal value of individual freedom and the right of citizenship and I did not repeat myself, but I wanted to add that democracy is a system as challenging as it is meaningful, as the term itself finds its roots in the Greek word kratos, which I do not know why, I always associate with the divine Albanian word “create”. The creative force of democracy as a non-destructive power, as a power that elevates society, not as divisive and denigrating, as a power that brings opportunities, equal to all, not deepening inequality and discrimination, the Albania of 2030 must take the best possible, through the power of all Albanians, for the red and black flag of Skanderbeg and Ismail Qemali to be raised in the arms of the flags of the member states of the European Union, there in the center of democratic Europe.

Today Albania has started to resemble you. It has begun to resemble more and more the Albanians of the arduous emigration routes that, thanks to the titanic efforts of several years, from the tattered and scarred half-dead mountain paths and sea coasts, were reborn, and became the masters of their destiny in Europe.

Albania, today, has been reborn in the eyes of the world and is no longer associated with the gloomy country of all evils, but with a destination to be discovered, to be touched. With a country of hospitable and ambitious people who are changing the face of Albania, with a state that is no longer seen in the doors and salons of Europe with suspicion or regret, but with respect and appreciation.

Today you no longer lower your head when you say: “I am from Albania”. And as your homeland has always been proud of you, today you are in God’s right to be proud of Albania.

Yesterday’s Albania could not hold you, today’s Albania is getting ready for anyone of you who wants or might want to return, but the Albania of 2030 will be the place where those who will return will have their own Albania; a European state in the heart of Europe, a democratic state where finally, after centuries, no one is above the law.

The times when others decided how far Albanians could go are dead. The time of Albanians and Albania in Europe has come.

Dear friends, sisters and brothers,

Thank you for this great honor.

May togetherness be the name of every new day for you, your families, your relatives, all those whom your heart loves.

You are an example, you are energy, you are strength for me.

I cannot open my heart and brain for you to come in and see yourself what’s inside, but I cannot leave today without saying two words to you. I may have made a lot of mistakes up to here, in these 10 years. I apologize for any mistake you think I have made, but I have never, in any case, betrayed those who trusted me even once with their vote for this extraordinary honor. 

There is no greater honor that can be given to a man than to lead his country, therefore there is no material force in this world, political, economic, financial, individual or state power that, can tempt me to benefit behind your back, to harm the public and private interests of Albanians or to bend the inviolable peaks of national interests of Albania.

Thanks to you, this was my most beautiful visit to Athens and I do not believe I will have a more beautiful one. Before I leave, I would like to leave a message on your behalf to my friend, elected by the people of this country to lead Greece, Prime Minister Mitsotakis. In 1886, our national poet Naim Frashëri wrote his poem “The True Desire of Albanians” in Greek: 

“We love for all our neighbors, 

Slavs and Greeks to live in harmony,

In brotherhood, with order and peace, to live. 

To not become enemies,

Enough are the many sufferings and tyrannies we have gone through. 

It is the time of well-being, it is the time of freedom”. 

Many thanks, from me and the Albanians of Greece. Long live Albania, zito i Elladha, long live democratic Europe!  May God bless the Albanians and their Greek brothers and open a new page of brotherhood, order and peace with prosperity between Albania and Greece.