Prime Minister Edi Rama attended Thursday the session “Widening Europe’s Horizons” as part of the World Economic Forum 2023 in Davos, Switzerland, along with the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola, President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic, and the Prime Minister of Ireland Leo Varadkar.
How can the new European Political Community help the European Union and its neighbours strengthen the continent’s security landscape amid wider geopolitical shifts? This was the main topic of the session hosted by Politico’s editor-in-chief Jamil Anderlini.
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Jamil Anderlini: Albania!
Prime Minister Edi Rama: What about Albania?
Jamil Anderlini: What do you think about the European Political Community?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: First of all we unfortunately don’t belong to the large club of countries in the Western Balkans witnessing a downgrade of the European Union image. And this is because we are different; we are loyal to the empires. So, whatever it happens we will stick with the European Union and even the European Union would disappear, we will be there. You laugh and I do understand why you laugh. After some depressing days you need to laugh and I am happy to make you laugh, but it is not a joke, it is true.
And now, talking about the new European Political Community, I think it is actually a good thing. It is a very French idea that started with Abate de Saint-Pierre in 1712 with his Perpetual Peace Treaty. And guess what: Abate de Saint-Pierre thought that the perpetual peace could be guaranteed only if Europe would join Russia and whoever else was under the then Ottoman Empire and do something big, upset some universal ruling and give up some sovereignty. Of course, it took some time to go back to this idea. Just count, 1712 to 2022! It was brought back by French time after time. Mitterrand tried it, Sarkozy tried it and it was always dismissed…
Jamil Anderlini: Napoleon tried it too.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: I didn’t go through all of them, but as a matter of fact it happens that they were more honest than some others, who said: “No, no, we will never do it, because we want everyone to get in, so be part of the EU.” And we of course all know that French are not really excited about us being getting in. So, it is a good proposal. Whether it would work or whether it would provide us a platform for all the Europeans being together – and by the way, our peninsula was named as Europe even before Europe itself was to be named as such. We are named Balkans because of a German, who made a major mistake. He was touring our peninsula and he had a Turkish translator and kept asking about this and that and the translator told him this is Balkan, that is Balkan, because in Turkish it means mountain. So he decided that our region was Balkan.
He later went on directing a blind people institute, but our region is still Balkans.
And now we have this new thing, namely the Western Balkans that has been invented, I guess, to get us on this side, a bit away from Türkiye, because we all know how it ended for Türkiye. However, we are there. We are right in the middle of Europe and we are not going to go anywhere. And I would wish that Serbs go somewhere else, but they are not going to go anywhere. And this is where my point about the region starts, about peace and about what we need to preserve.
People in Brussels have to realize that in a region where the EU is going down and where Putin is increasingly being seen like a hero in some of the countries, not in Albania of course, because Putin’s popularity in Albania is 0, 07% and it is still big for us, because as I already said we are all in and we love European Union around 99%, while we love the United States of America 100%.
We actually need to preserve this. I and the Serbian President somehow have a big disagreement about what he calls “a region of Serbia” and what I call “the free state of Kosova” and I have my arguments about that.
But, this doesn’t make me blind vis-à-vis the very need to keep everyone on board. And to conclude, I would like to say a final thing.
There is a lot of criticism against (former Chancellor) Angela Merkel, there is a lot of criticism against all “the blind” politicians that took the Russian gas and so on and they are now replacing it.
My understanding of the world is that they are not replacing “the dirty” Russian source with some clean sources from vibrant democracies. But the market is also part of all of this and I am not going to rush in rendering judgment and opinions, but instead I would say that we need to understand each other much better.
Something very essential and basic thing is happening that we all in the Western Balkans are aligned in one front within the United Nations when it comes to condemning Russia and when it comes to condemning its aggression, including Serbia.
When it comes to sanctions, yes, it can be feasible for everyone. We have backed sanctions on Russia, because as a matter of fact we don’t have Russians, we don’t have Russian investments, we don’t need Russian gas and therefore we can sanction them even more.
However, we have to understand one thing; yes, imposing sanctions is a good decision, but in the meantime the European Union states have recovery funds, have innovation funds, have miracle funds that are additional to the revenues of every member state.
But we don’t. Nobody in our region does.
So, if the European Union can get us a bit more in, and I am not pretending to get as much funds as our neighbors that are no longer seen as Balkan countries, but we should definitely get something. All these countries should get something. North Macedonia should get something. We talk about Serbia because it is more trendy, but North Macedonia seriously risks of going deep down of nationalism that can cause a lot of troubles.
Jamil Anderlini: You alluded to fossil fuels, gas from the Middle East, I believe. Are you talking about Qatar?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: What I am talking about is actually what I say, and it is not what you comment on. It was not to blame anyone, but just to say that before blaming Angela Merkel, think how hypocritical you all are, because when she did it, nobody said: “No, no we don’t want cheap gas. We want very expensive gas, because we want clean gas, we want democratic gas.”
I don’t think so. It is always stable and Germans are always good.
Jamil Anderlini: The EU is known for describing itself as a superpower of values. I would really argue that there is somewhat a sanctimonious approach to other countries when it comes to human rights and the rule of law. How badly do you think this corruption scandal has not only damaged the image of the entire European Union, but how much are feeling about what is going on. May be Edi can…
Prime Minister Edi Rama: You actually fish me, because you want my fireworks. Listening to Roberta, believe it or not, she was saying what I really tell myself and I have been saying for some time now anytime I have been meeting European officials. When she was rightly asked that the good news should be also visible, God knows how many good news from Albania and the region should have been actually visible, but they were never visible in the eyes of the European Parliament itself. So, when I said that I was not surprised that at the end the Balkans can be blamed for this and be described as a Balkans conspiracy, it is not far from the truth.
I would highlight two examples. The first one when we were asked or let’s say when we wanted to do and when we very much supported to make this famous wipeout of the corrupt judges and prosecutors from our justice system and we embarked on it as we always do, fully convinced, with full faith and full of pride because we are doing something that our European “gods” would love us to do and support us doing. And guess what. The overhaul was so radical that all of a sudden we remained without a Constitutional Court. Nine out of 11 justices were removed, because they couldn’t justify their wealth. And we thought that Europeans would love it, but they told us: “Well, you don’t have a Constitutional Court.” As such, it became our main problem.
We operated the patient and while the operation was incredible successful, we were told: “Your patient is not running.”
Jamil Anderlini: You killed the patient.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: We cured it completely, but the EU wanted the patient to run, because they had elections to hold and they couldn’t give us the green light without holding their elections first.
Second, Roberta said how great it was for Malta to join the EU. Now I am telling you, the process has completely changed. It has totally changed. The process has become the most incredibly neurotic and unfair thing, which is actually good for us, because it is a very good exercise of nerves and it is a great knowhow transfer, because the Balkan countries won’t have a future without the EU given that the EU is the only source of knowledge as to how build the institutions, the democratic states and so on and so forth.
But if they were to reserve the same treatment to the member states themselves, I am telling you – and I am not necessarily referring to Malta – but more than half of the EU member states wouldn’t be able to access the EU anymore. It would be impossible for them.
And I am not talking about the former communist states, but also for the founding countries.
This is the reality of things, but for us and for me – and this is not a joke – the EU is the only destination, whatever it takes.
Even we will never arrive there, the important part of it is that we should be able to build a EU-like state with real institutions, real accountability and so on and so further. I am sorry Roberta, but I have to say it; when this corruption case went public, I said: “Karma is a bitch.”
Jamil Anderlini: This will make the headlines. I have other questions to make, but I would allow you to make any question. But questions only and if you make a statement or a comment the microphone will be out. You are welcomed if you wish to address any questions to this honored panel. If not I am going to ask Leo a question.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Can I ask a question to the distinguished Irish Prime Minister, because it looks like he came here to listen to us. This is the greatness of being corrupt or being outside Europe, because we are less boring, whereas they are boring.
We travel to Brussels anytime we have meetings there and we don’t need Brussels more than that. You better come to the Balkans where you would see how life can be so beautiful and inspiring even in times of crisis.
Jamil Anderlini: I am looking forward to it.
