Remarks by Prime Minister Edi Rama at the Parliament of the Republic of Kosovo’s special session on celebration of 10th anniversary of Independence:
Honourable President of the Republic of Kosovo, Hashim Thaçi!
Honourable Speaker of Parliament, Kadri Veseli!
Honourable Prime Minister of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj !
Honourable friends and colleagues from Tirana, Mr. President, Mr. Berisha, Basha and dear friends and partners of Kosovo and Albania!
Honourable Members of Parliament of the Republic of Kosovo!
This day a decade ago following a centenary journey ample of history, events and incredible accounts of resistance and sacrifices, invincible dreams and ideals of people for their freedom, Kosovo achieved a great historic aspiration by establishing as the youngest state on the global political map.
It accounts more than 115 international recognitions nowadays and has marked considerable progress to consolidating its sovereignty, empowering institutions and the democratic state. From past generations resistance under the first Yugoslavian kingdom to the communist oppression and ethnic discrimination, the peaceful and civic resistance of early ‘90s and the firm appearance of Kosovo’s Liberation Army in late 20thcentury dusk, it is a new era which burden surpasses linguistic opportunities to reflect it in all its grandeur. Hence, please do apologise avoidance of history in this greeting speech.
I believe you are of my same mind that only two decades ago Kosovo’s independence celebration was more a utopia rather than an achievable result in the spectre of our living organisms, let alone, Albania’s Prime Minister address at the Parliament of Kosovo on its 10th anniversary of independence which I think would not be possible either through the most fertile literary imagination.
It all has happened and at the time when political ideals and conformity collapsed as an inevitable destiny, the unrelenting commitment of ordinary people of this country, heroes emerging from the chest of this people, made the most impossible possible.
Kosovo and Albania are to this day two administrative realities formally separated, but now as part of a shared historic narrative, a national unified feeling and an inseparable political interest they adhere to the same media domain, in a natural economic interaction, in a continuous institutional and politic interaction, in the context of the irreversible approach of the future national programme.
Based on the present reality reflection it is not impossible to predict the journey to come to Pristina, 10 years from today, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Kosovo’s independence, free of Morine border crossing and thousands of ten-years old of Albania and Kosovo, who will join in “Skanderbeg” square to see a young Rita Ora on that evening.
Beginning by a joint government’s meeting and pursuing the same system between the Republic of Kosovo and the Republic of Albania and the cooperation at all levels will be crowned with not merely a unified education system but also guaranteed by the materialised European standards.
The severe educational damage, either form harsh communism consequences in transitional Albania or the tough isolation consequences of Kosovo, will be a past memory which will leave its place to a new generation of Albanians, well-educated, equal knowledge to their European peers, where academic success of our students and learners will not be a mere individual achievement but a national and social arranged endeavour.
Customs system will be unified and the common trade and economic space will have entered into its irreversible thriving phase thanks to a successful regional integration. In this integrated space tourism would have become a powerful development industry due to exploitation of beauties and natural resources as well as the diversity of Albanian tradition from the white Mountains of Rugova to Ksamil blue plateaus, certainly thanks to a cutting edge infrastructure from the upper tip of Kosovo to the furthest corners of Albania.
The hardship dialogue with Serbia will be history and Albanian and Serbs will co-exist in the context of their future, as two good-neighbouring people and as integrated part of the European Union.
Kosovo and Albania will be endowed of the same foreign policy and not separate embassies and the same diplomatic representatives and why not one president, a national unity symbol and a national security policy.
Perhaps, this prediction today could not be advisory within the rationale sphere but history I apologised in advance not to refer to, advices us on what is fair to dream is not impossible to achieve. The future belongs to those who precede that and the last 20 years past of this country, Kosovo, has preceded thanks to its people, a future which in any case is closer than the distance we see today.
Eqerem Bej Vlora, while unfolding countless vicissitudes of post-Independence Albania in his memoirs, wrote among others that: “I have been judged three times due to that whimsical love by the name Albania. Once because of the Turkish, as I loved her too much. Once by fanatic rebels, as I did not hate her and now, from my compatriots for not loving her enough. I felt like laughing. Now this folly love is over, I told to myself. But it was meant to happen otherwise.”
Almost one century later, since this experience inspired one of the most precious Albanian writer, inner battles, the day’s inter-political conflict and the exasperation of parliamentary sessions in Albania and Kosovo, still weigh down to our running towards the future. Nevertheless, even today like then it is clearly meant to happen otherwise. And, if institutional opportunities of our two countries are objectively limited, than the energies and talents of our people on this side and the other side of the Mountains, Kosovo and Albania must think not only to each-other but also through one another, the common perspective and hence the joint perspective will be theirs.
Recent decades of this country where we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of Independence is not an occasion to romanticise the past but an opportunity to rethink the future. Kosovo’s anniversaries just as all Albanians in general should not be transformed in a self-satisfactory retrospective but should be turned into a self-perfection perspective.
By my great desire that I shall be here once again on the 20th anniversary of Independence, but then as Zaho’s father, with my teenage son who will come to see a young Rita Ora concert, in the reality of today’s imagination I just described on Albania and Kosovo and by the determination that as Prime Minister of Albania I will do everything possible that this will happen, I thank you from my heart to this special honour conferred to me as a speaker from this stand and I wish you all happy celebrations.
Thank you very much!
