Good evening!
Given your questions and worries, I thought it would be useful for us to host this conversation.
I will begin with the questions:
“Why those on maternity leave are excluded from earning rewards?”
None of those on maternity leave are excluded from earning rewards. Payment of the baby bonus cash gifts will not cease.
“Considering the changing situation, you should ease some of the lockdown restrictive measures and hopefully make sure that schools reopen soon.”
It is still too early to talk about reopening schools and it is exactly this I am going to talk about today, the situation in the context of the general panorama since the beginning of this situation and how we see the near future.
“Should we go to the bank or will we be informed via a text message about the wartime salary?”
I don’t exactly know what it is about and to which category you belong, but I know that the number of small business workers who have received the wartime salary as of today is 17200 persons. And this number has been recorded on the second day only. New funds are being approved and allocated every day, and, as I have promised, the entire process of paying all those included in the first financial support package will complete within a week, or a day later due to the delays in preparing the required documentation.
“I would like to suggest that number of Embassy employees increase in order to deal with immigrant passports issue.”
There is no need to increase the number of employees. You are not to be blamed for the delayed deadlines caused by the lockdown measures, not only here, but all over the world. So, nobody will be punished for the fact that you have been unable to travel.
“I just received a refusal for the wartime salary. I own a small cloth shop that I have shut down. I don’t benefit the salary. We have gone bankrupt as we are unable to pay taxes, rent and everything else.”
The way you put it, you are right. All you need to do is to access the online website of the Taxation Directorate. If this is the case, you belong to the category of the small businesses that have been shut down, not because you have been unwilling to work, but you have been unable to do so because of the stay-at-home orders and you are entitled to benefit this salary.
“My medical and disability-related leave ends in June. Doctors say that no recommendation for such benefit is going to be issued.”

These are deadlines to be missed and not respected and this is not because we don’t want to do so, but because the conditions we have set all together are as such. All these deadlines won’t be considered violated ones. As soon as the restrictive measures are gradually relaxed, you will be able to carry out the due procedures and appear before the relevant Commission. But no worries, as you would receive the payment for the medical and disability-related leave until you are provided the opportunity to resume the due procedures again.
“Is the online www.shqiperiaqeduam.al still operational, or is it in quarantine too. For more than a week we have attempted to file a complaint with the platform, but nobody is responding to our calls?”
Don’t raise same concern 100 times. You just need to count the days since the application is lodged. All the applicants will definitely receive a reply within the 10-day deadline. The volume of phone calls has surged and all it takes is just patience.
“What is going to happen with us that used to work in restaurants? We are now jobless and with no source of income of whatsoever.”
All those who used to work in restaurants that have been closed because of the ongoing situation are included in the category of workers entitled to benefit the salary under the government’s support package. The first support package includes small business with registered worker. If you are a registered worker in a small business then you will benefit the promised wartime salary. If you are a registered large business employee, then you will be included in the second expanded support package, about which I will talk later.
“What is going to happen with workers in the garment industry? We are now jobless and the companies are paying us nothing.”
If you are unable to work due to the stay-at-home orders then you will benefit salary under the expanded financial package.
“I applied for a new driving licence since October and the validity of the documents have submitted is about to expire on April 20.”
The procedures to issue state documents have been suspended since this war started. But you have no reason to worry about, because you will be able to drive the car with the existing license till this war is over.
“The social distancing measures are super, but the economic ones are terrible. Please reflect.”
I don’t know what kind of reflection you are talking about. The war itself is terrible. The economic measures are no less, no more that support for existence, starting with assistance initially provided to those in need most, and others in less troubles, but without forgetting that everyone is currently encountering and finding themselves in troubles. Therefore, don’t expect measures so that you won’t feel any war effects. Everyone will feel the impacts of the war; our common big home, the state’s coffer which is just like the family’s coffer, which lacks the revenue and income everyone used to earn and save during the same period of the previous year, just because of the fact that many members of our big family are not working currently and therefore they are not contributing. On the contrary, they are asking and they are in need for help. So, the economic measures are not terrible. They are the required and helpful measures to keep everyone alive and make sure everyone continue existing, but not lead the same kind of life you used to lead a year ago. As long as you are able to pay for the internet, I think you are in a very good situation, compared to many others in much worse conditions. As many as 63,142 families have received a doubled economic assistance payment today. The rest, or six percent of the whole payment that is covered by the local government will be allocated in the days to come and the number of the beneficiaries will rise to over 71, 000 individuals and families in need.
“What is going to happen with the bar-cafes …?”
The bar-cafes will not open. They are the last to open. When they open it would mean that it is time for everyone to celebrate the end of the war.
“What about the closed barber shops …”
The barbers who have closed their shops and who pay social insurance contributions will all receive the wartime salary, or a relevant support, which we are currently calculating and they will be included in the second expanded support package due to be unveiled by April 15.
Let’s talk about the situation now, as it is very important.
The situation on the frontline in Covid-19 fight is very encouraging. As of today, 56 Covid-19 patients are currently being treated at the Infectious Diseases Hospital, five of them under intensive care, and seven other patients are hospitalized at “Shefqet Ndroqi” hospital, six of them under intensive care. These figures are extremely important, just like it is important the most recent downward trend in the number of hospitalized people. This trend shows result of our stringent measures. The trend shows the situation in the battlefield. Everything else are pure speculations, predictions, plans and programs, but, in the end, there is one major reason why the whole world is isolated and why the quarantine has now become a kind of a new world order, because thanks to the quarantine we are able to defend our health system and make sure that the health system maintains its capacities to cope with the health care needs. What has happened in many other countries, including Italy and other nations, what is happening today right at the heart of the United States, New York, it is the overload of the health system and inability to serve everyone at once.
As of today, the two Covid-19 dedicated hospitals, namely the Infectious Disease Hospital and Shefqet Ndroqi University Hospital have a capacity of 310 beds, without taking into account a high number of free beds in other hospitals. Currently, a total of 63 coronavirus patients are being treated at hospitals, accounting for only 23.5 percent of the 310-bed capacity of the two hospitals. This is one of the major achievements thanks to the stringent measures we have put in place as a result of your fantastic resistance. If we were to fail to act and take all these measures and if you all were not to resist, then we would have found ourselves deep into a huge hole, praying to stay alive. It is as simple as that and just as true as can be. Everything else is nonsense.
One of the things that is driving entire planet and the most developed nations mad – if you listen to the daily press statements and update briefings provided by the President of the United States, the world’s richest and most powerful nation, then you would understand what I am saying, just not to mention every other country – that is the fleet of respiratory equipment that are being transported by the army from one state to the other. Because the situation is being managed according to the most alarming needs. Meanwhile, just a day ago, President revealed to the American people the graph of the new purchases in order to have a number of breathing ventilators to cope with the war without creating the health system’s overload and without letting hot spots of fire that would be inextinguishable. We currently have a stock of 200 respiratory equipment, plus 54 new respirators, and 30 others on their way to here, plus 20 respirators provided under the European Union’s initial support package, the total number of respiratory equipment is 304.
So, we have 304 breathing ventilators available today, which mean that we are able to assist more than 200 people, if needed. Thanks God, thanks to the restrictive measures and thanks to your fantastic resistance, a total of only 4 patients need respirators currently, accounting for 1.3% of the entire capacity of respirators we have made available. So, these are the two sides of the coin showing the situation of the war.
We are the country with the lowest number of coronavirus patients requiring intubation in Europe, while we have the highest percentage of hospital beds made available for this category of patients. Why? Is this because we are wiser? Is this because we are richer? Is this because we have the best health system? Absolutely not! This is because we were the first to act and put stringent measures in place, like in few other countries, and that’s why we are here today and that’s why we will lose no ground, but will resist and emerge proud from this war.
The opposition party claimed earlier today that the government and I have lied about having 2000 test kits. This is crazy! I understand that we are in a phase where stress and impatience, but on the other hand we are also in a phase where there is a huge lack of attention to read the things that have been said. I have explicitly stated that the issue of testing and test kits is up to the Technical Committee of Experts. They are not a matter of politics, they are not a matter of government and let alone of the Democratic Party. It is impossible to heed the recommendations of the Democratic Party on the issue of tests. Never! What I have stated is that this is all a strategy drafted and determined by the Technical Committee of Experts and we support it. If the Technical Committee of Experts would tell us that 2000 tests should be carried out daily, we support it. I have already stated and I repeat it, we will support whatever the number of needed tests. We haven’t entered blindly this war, I haven’t entered this war by resorting to “let it be whatever it is.” I am prepared for everything. We will move heaven and earth to provide Albanians everything they need. Fortunately we lack nothing today, but the sense of understanding, and the logical sense of those who call themselves the political opposition and who keep playing the same old phonograph record, or disc and same old tune as if we are not at a war, as if we are not strongly fighting an invisible enemy, but are still at the time of stories, I am not going to remind you, but that happened at peacetime when artificial conflicts were created. This is not an artificial conflict. We are at a fatal conflict if we don’t do the things we are doing on daily basis by resorting to strong will, great patience and extraordinary solidarity.
“When flights will resume?”
The skies will open up to flights once this situation is over. But when this situation is going to end? Nobody knows.
“When the situation will calm down?”
There could be no calmer wartime situation than this, which is certainly a calm situation in terms of the relation with the enemy and not in terms if relation with ourselves and what we would have wished at peacetime. We could have well countered hundreds of dead today and we could have found ourselves inside a tunnel, from where we could have emerged with thousands of dead, while you ask when the situation is going to calm down.
“You have abandoned Albanian people.”
I don’t actually know what sort of minds could be inspired under the current circumstances to write and express complaints, to throw insults and curses, at a time when understanding and solidarity are desperately needed. We have been tasked and I have been tasked with the mission of protecting your lives and for that I negotiate with any pathetic complainer, with no opponent or opposition representatives asking for the impossible. Please let us not I give in to self complacency and together go on fighting just we have done to date. Everything is now under control, yet everything can go out of our control soon, if we don’t control ourselves and one another.
I want also to clarify on some concrete issues concerning certain individuals, businesses, and needy people in a difficult situation. Although I access this site constantly, I always try to talk, communicate with you, then at certain moments, because I know how important communication is, I know how important it is to provide you answers, but please focus some more when you read the things we write, concentrate when you get official information, and concentrate now too.
I have received a number of complaints, requests forwarded by small businesses, including dressmakers, car repair shops and others. The car repair shops, according to the current law, are allowed to operate, but indeed they have ceased operating, because the number of people using their personal cars over these days is very small. Only a small number of people are allowed to drive cars to go to work and therefore the car repair shops have practically ceased operating. Likewise, other free professions, including legally working plumbers, travel operators and agencies, designers working for third parties, taxi drivers are all small business operators. All these, including any other category of similar small business operators, will be part of the expanded second support package. All these businesses, without any exception, will benefit under the expanded package, because they are de facto closed businesses because of the war. The package will also include workers of the public transportation operators.
“I saw you while visiting Thumana and you didn’t wear a protective face mask.”
I was not shopping there. I inspected a construction site, where not so many people gather, and everyone maintains a safe distance. I approached to nobody, and nobody approached me. So, you have no reason to worry about me, because I don’t do things that would convey a wrong message. That’s why I didn’t wear a mask. And when, and if the wearing a mask becomes mandatory, then I am going to wear it. Wearing a face mask is not mandatory today. Wearing a mask would be a must for certain categorises, but for the time being this is not the case for everyone. It suffices to maintain the safe distance. It suffices not to enter overcrowded markets, not to meet people, not to approach them and everything would be fine. We are hearing every sort of speculations. We hear about such speculations in America and France too. Let’s focus on our own problems, because, apart from being a world that is terrifying whole world, it is also a war that, although we are a small country, although we are not developed like many other countries, we can still win this war in an exemplary way. We can do this by doing what we are supposed to do wisely, in solidarity and strong determination and clearly distancing from those who do not obey to rules. I have already stated that individuals, who earn their living by putting a house or another property up for rent and this is the only source of their income, will not be left alone, because the government will provide them subsidies.
The number of these individuals is registered with the Tax Administration. Meanwhile, I repeat that the rent agreement is somehow a specific one. There are verbal agreements and non-notarized written deals, but also agreements certified by a notary. All those who have put a property up for rent and earn income from that property, they should all fill a declaration with the Tax Administration until April 10 and all those who have no other source of income will be included in the expanded support package.
“How come that you know how many people will get sick and how many would recover?”
What else am I supposed to know if I were not to know how many people fall ill and how many others recover? And if more people than I know get sick, where are they? This is because only 23.5 percent of the capacity of our hospitals is currently used. It is a specific, fortunately a small kind of Albanians who know everything, just because they know nothing. Shun this kind of people as much as you can. I can’t avoid them, because it is my duty to protect them in this situation.
Small businesses should not pay rent and once this phase is over, together with the leaser, they will reach an agreement to pay the rent in tranches. In the meantime, we are considering very carefully all individuals who earn their living from the rent income and we are also calculating the assistance we will provide to them. I can’t name an amount today, because we should first calculate everything, since we have to be prepared for every scenario possible in order not only to win the war, but also make sure that we don’t succumb and go broke, as we would then have to struggle to recover the country’s economy and make use of all spaces of peace.
“I run a car wash and I work together with my son. I am staying at home for a month now. I went to work today and I earned just 100 lek because of the restrictive measures.
You are right and licensed car wash businesses are included in the category of the car repair shops, which are legally opened, but practically not. You too, and the whole category you represent will be included in the expanded support package that will be ready by April 15.
Meanwhile, we are placing special attention to this category and this is very important, because there are many of you who are rightly concerned about this. We will also not leave alone all the big business employees, who have been currently fired because companies are unable to pay their salaries, essentially due to the ongoing war! I have already told you and I repeat, just show some more patience, because we need to look into the figures and characteristics of everyone. There are many businesses that have suspended their workers, but still they pay a part of their employees’ salaries. There are other businesses that temporarily sent their workers home, paying also a part of their salaries. So, some of these workers have been fired since the beginning of this war, while others some days later. We need to go over all these figures and data and we will do something, which will certainly be our maximum. We will not leave you alone. We won’t tell you to kill yourself. You are war orphanages and as such we will never leave you alone. We will not leave you alone and at it takes is just a little bit more patience, because, although not many are now saying that people will die of hunger – and indeed no Albanian has ever died of hunger since the era of Skenderbe. I don’t know whether anyone has ever died of hunger. If anyone does, let them say. Albanians are generous and have an extreme sense of solidarity with each other. Meanwhile today you have today a person and a government that never leaves you alone! We will help people by resorting to every opportunity and resource.
“Why you don’t tell people not to pay taxes, water and electricity bills?
If you are to pay nothing, then what are the revenue and the money you want the government to pay everyone? Where does the double increase in the economic assistance come from? Where does the wartime salary for more than 60,000 people currently at home come from? Where does the EUR 100 million guarantee fund for the companies come from in order to make sure that they continue operating and don’t fire their workers? Where does all the money we are preparing to allocate under the second economic package? Therefore, I invite you not to talk nonsense.
Paying the electricity bills is non-negotiable. A country that negotiates payment of the electricity bills and a country that is then unable to provide electricity supply is unable to win a single battle, let alone a war. Forget it!
Payment of taxes on the recorded earnings is non-negotiable. But businesses that have closed their shops and activities will not pay taxes during the lockdown time.
All those facing insecurity, the sense of anxiety and nightmare because they used to work in a company and now have been temporarily fired, not because they wished to do so, but because the companies have suspended them because of the war, will not be left alone. But to determine how, when and how much, we will be needing some more time, since I have already told you that the further expansion of the support package won’t happen before April 15. This is because we have to consider what is going on in the battlefield, figure out our capacities to resist during war. We have to consider the number of the affected people, the health care capacities, beds so that we can understand how Albania and Albanian people are doing in the face of this invisible enemy.
When you are told that this is not being done, we are lacking this and that, I would ask only this: Is there any Albanian today having difficulties in breathing, but yet he or she cannot be hospitalized, just like it is the case and is happening in many developed countries? Is there any Albanian today – God forbid it – lamenting and mourning their dead fathers of mothers wrapped in black bags, while there is no place to bury them? There is absolutely none of these things happening here. Why is this not happening? This is not happening because we all together have done everything that others, although probably smarter, more developed and richer than us, failed to do at the right time.
We cannot afford giving in and waste everything we have achieved to date just because some think that spring came and want to go out. Others think that fines are imposed on people only. Fines are not imposed on people, but on the violators. If you want to avoid penalties, then you should not commit violations. It is as simple as that. Why do you worry about the penalties? Why do you worry about the prison sentences that will soon follow, because they are a must?
Let’s move to the last part. Why is it a must?
How should we conceive the reopening after the lockdown?
We should conceive reopening as a gradual process, step by step. This is not a war where we can imagine the last day when ‘the last German soldier” will leave so that we can then come together to sing the national anthem and hug each other. This is a war that will continue much longer that its foreseeable end. We will have to coexist with the epidemics for a while, or its shadow, so to say. It will last. We will be forced to set and respect several measures in our lives, although such measures would sound absurd. For example, we will set several measures to ease the lockdown measures, but they will be coupled with a series of other much tougher and stringent measures.
If we are to say that we will allow all people to drive their personal cars to go to work, we must also impose preventive measures of the kind that, if you use the private vehicle for something else, then you will see some penalty points imposed against driving license, see you car seized for several years and not for a few months, in addition to paying a fine, and you may also end up behind bars, because this is a dangerous violation that risks other peoples’ lives.
Whoever questions this, I would tell them to look at the international laws about the epidemics. Unfortunately, our Criminal Code doesn’t foresee this, but it includes provisions on the animals’ quarantining. So, those who have drafted the democratic Criminal Code have thought about quarantining the animals, but failing to think that what could happen and what needs to be done in the event of an epidemic among the people. To this end, we will ask the Parliament to amend the Criminal Code and the Road Code, which are designed to clear the way to a clear penal and stringent framework in order to ensure that the new travel rules are duly respected.

If we want to move towards reopening, and we are looking forward to opening all shops and business units outside large shopping malls and commercial centres, because they are the last open due to the large crowds of people they bring together, we will certainly impose and push for implementation of strict measures, including mandatory use of face masks, gloves, disinfectants and other safety measures both for workers and customers. There are some rules everybody should obey if we want to gradually lift the stringent lockdown measures.
I repeat, every shop owner and every small business owner should prepare and provide all required protective measures before they open their shops and businesses.
This means that if they violate these measures, this is no longer an administrative offence, but a criminal offence.
The same goes for the pedestrians. We can no longer go on with awareness raising campaign only. If we are to extend the daily time period allowing people to leave their houses for shopping and to run errands, then any pedestrian violating the rules will no longer face merely an administrative penalty, mainly a fine, but any violation will constitute a criminal offence and penalties will include hefty fines and prison sentences. Likewise, all violators of the quarantine will see their driving licence revoked immediately. Whoever raises the question about this, I would tell them “don’t dare to oppose or consider these rules as an invention.” It suffices to look at the neighbouring Italy. Italians included such proposals in their legal framework as soon as we did it. I am not saying they copied or followed our lead, yet they included such measures to the country’s legislation. Everyone will lose the driving license immediately. This is for the violators to face the consequences of their actions, because we cannot allow these individuals to violate the quarantine rules and pose a serious threat to whole neighbourhood as they can contract the Covid-19 virus, seriously threatening their parents, grannies and everyone else and such individuals cannot get away with a fine that is eventually paid by their parents. This cannot happen.
The same goes for the transportation of other individuals one is unauthorized for. If you own a car and can drive it to go to work, you will be allowed to take another colleague from work and the latter should seat in the backseat and not in the front seat. If you transport other persons, then you have committed a criminal offence and you will face criminal charges. And if you go even further by transporting ailing people, older adults, or underage children without having a due authorization, then this would be absolutely intolerable. However, all these stringent measures will enter into force starting next week. We will go to Parliament to amend the Criminal Code and Road Code and then the proposed amendments will be detailed to include these measures in order to make clear that no fines and penalties will be applied to ordinary people. Fines and penalties will be imposed on violators, who threaten the citizens’ health, risking the lives of the people who observe and respect the rules and who have the right to tell them: Your freedom ends where mine begins and will not allow you to infect me and cause death in my family.”
“You are driving us crazy with such things.”
Why are you going mad? Are you going mad because we are protecting your and your family’s life!? Are going mad because we are preventing Albania from turning into a Covid-infested hole!? Are you going mad because, fortunately and thanks to the Albanian people, who are all fighting on the front line, Albania is not making the international headlines?! Or are you going mad because we have managed to maintain a completely stable situation, when everyone could make catastrophic predictions given that how many individuals like you respect the law, the rule and coexistence, without going mad.
“Measures are OK, but you too should act as our families and relatives are calling for help.”
I have been talking about this all the time.
“What is going to happen with us as our Albanian-plated cars have been blocked in Italy?”
Let the car stay there, while you should stay here. Life is what matters most, then the car.
“When the borders will open?”
I repeat, borders and the customs services will not open. We will not open up borders. Please understand this. This is neither a matter of patriots, nor a matter of willingness. True patriots are those who protect their people, the community where they live, protect their families and themselves so that they unintentionally do not become a traitor collaborating with this invisible enemy by turning into travelling biological bombs, taking it from the street to their own homes, and then from one border to another. Do you understand this? Thanks God, things are going right. We should resist, because this is a war where the more we resist today, the better we will emerge tomorrow, and not in terms of our health, but also in terms of many other aspects, and the sooner we will get out of the bunker we are all hiding today, or the bunker I ordered you to go in, i.e, the “Surrel bunker”, since I live in a bunker, while you live in a lawn.
“You are a con man. People are dying at border and you are preventing them to go to their homes. They have no bread to eat.”
Nobody dies of anything, but the today’s stupidity, which means that anybody could die of the violation of the rules, disobedience, collaboration with the enemy that is hoping for all these to happen. A beautiful saying has it: The virus has no legs, yet it walks by the feet of the fool. So, it is as simple as that.
“I run a dry cleaning shop. I opened the shop yesterday, but no customers showed up. What is going to happen?”
Your business, too, is classified in the category of the activities I mentioned earlier. It is a business currently not operating and if its annual turnover is $140,000, which means it is part of the small businesses that have not been shut down, yet have suffered economic losses as a result of the Covid-19 situation. Therefore, you should file an application with the General Taxation Directorate once we announce the extended financial package to include all this category of businesses by April 15.
“What do you think about yourself? Do you think you are God in heaven who decides about life and death? Stay at home and get used to it, since you will stay very long at home after a year.”
What could you possibly tell this sort of individuals! I think of myself, no more, no less than the protector of your life. I think of myself as your servant. Though you are the most significant personification of the famous saying: “every forest is home to wild swine,” and, although this our forest, just like any other forest, is home to pigs, like the one you are, but this is not important at all since in this time I am here to protect your life. You are unable to grasp this, and may you never understand it,  but it is vitally important that you emerge from this war unharmed and, God forbid it, hopefully you don’t become “the enemy’s collaborator”, by becoming a transporter of its bombs to your own home. But what I can do, what we can do is to completely dismantle your bomb, in terms of this death that is hovering around over the heads of Albanians.
Thank you all and let’ us continue this way, by showing patience and being confident that we would do whatever in our own hands and power. So far, you have been all phenomenal. If we continue like this, there is no doubt that we will emerge victorious from this war. There is no war without casualties, without suffering, without wounds. Wars do not happen to make us happy. Everyone has more worries today than they had yesterday, but never forget those in deep trouble and woes, who  are the ones we need to take care of most and everyone else then.
Thank you very much!