Remarks by Prime Minister Edi Rama at High Level Regional Justice Conference, gathering Western Balkan justice ministers, representatives of judicial institutions, civil society, and media in Tirana:

Thank you very much!

In honour of the guests coming from all over the region, I will address this event in English so that they will have no need to listen the language interpretation since my Albanian is quite complex.

I will begin my speech by saying – as other panellists already stated in their remarks – that we have referred to Alexis de Tocqueville, as Majlinda said, or to Martin Luther King, as Luigi said.

While I would like to quote Friedrich Ebert and anytime we are given the opportunity to talk with our international friends, we talk about Adenauer, De Gaulle, Jefferson, Roosevelt, but sometimes I feel like there is a vacuum, as we refer to late people, while our European friends refer to voters, who naturally cast their vote and who have turned their eyes to Europe, here in the region, or to voters in the EU who are not too optimistic about enlargement.

However, we need to trust those who have departed from this world and should trust the spirit with which European was founded and the spirit with which this fantastic project of humanity will not die. And thanks God insofar we see signals showing that such a project won’t die and instead it will continue to live and certainly we also perceive the agony we see in some other countries.

But Friedrich Ebert has once said that freedom and justice are twin and inseparable sisters. And this freedom-justice twining is exactly the easiest thing to do by words and not actions, taking also into consideration a long history of injustice and without freedom, a common history we all on this side of the room have gone through and this makes things not easy at all.

I was given the opportunity to meet President Clinton during the burial ceremony of President Shirak in Paris. We had a really nice conversation and I shared with him my idea that there is the only country in our part of the world where the US foreign policy can be seen on its best day, when it all started with a bombing campaign, which has already turned into regional cooperation. In other countries, the bombs have not actually led to stability or peace, or much less, yet they haven’t led to regional cooperation either.

Certainly, the goal and the objective remains the same. The forces that were bombed were indeed the same. But why it was different here in this region? What makes this region different from, let’s say, Iraq or other regions around the world? So, what makes an 18-year-old in Tirana, Pristina, Belgrade, Podgorica or Skopje behave differently from a 20-year-old in Mosul?

I believe that, among many other things, this has exactly to do with the fact that for 20-year-old man in this region, the West is located right at his doorstep and, as far as Albanians are concerned – I just heard the statistical data provide by Mrs. Bregu – since Albanians are really too optimistic about Europe, or 90 percent of them support European integration, I believe they help to increase the region’s average pro-European aspiration. I didn’t mention Kosovo, because something is going on in Kosovo. The support for EU among Kosovo citizens was estimated around 90% yet this support is going down and will keep doing so just because Kosovo is being treated unfairly. Kosovo has been vetoed regarding the visa liberalization. There are 2 million people, who were granted free travel during the dictatorship, but now that they are freed they are not being the freedom to travel freely. They could travel freely under the Milosevic’s regime, whereas they can’t do so now with the very friends who liberated them. And these friends … since 2014 have allowed more than 100 million people travel already freely from Ukraine, still at war, Georgia, Moldova etc., whereas only two million people are being kept hostage.

So, what can be done?

Shall we continue to quote Jefferson, Adenauer, De Gaulle, and all these dead people, hoping that their spirits will release better energies for the today’s living leaders?

But, going back to what I wanted to say, it is not something that happened 100 years ago, but just a few years ago, when the bombs went off and shook the whole region and 500,000 people were displaced overnight because of ethnic cleansing. Do you see what happens today? We are here together and for 5 years now, maybe all the countries in the region are sitting now at the table under a very inspiring label, the Berlin Process, being confident in the future as Europeans and as part of the EU.

Let me say again that justice stands above everything, so everything has to do with justice. Of course and certainly this is why we are so committed and devoted to this our difficult love for the EU, because the thing is that we should not please Paris, Berlin, The Hague, or whatever other EU city, but this has to do with our country’s transformation and change. This has to do with the fact that our countries should build a functioning democracy, functioning states with such institutions, first and foremost, with a credible and impartial system of justice.

A small city called Sonora lies on the border between the United States and Mexico. Half of the city lies in the US and the other half in Mexico. The same people on the US side are granted education, health care, rule of law, and there is no criminality. Ok there might be a crime rate, but it cannot compare to the crime rate on the other side of the border. On the other side of the border, you would stand no chance of accomplishing something in your life unless you are not linked with cartels. So it is a city divided in half between the US and Mexico. So, it has nothing to do with the climate, or religion, but it has to do with the institutions. And it is our destiny of all of us here and when I said this actually I underlined that we are exactly the embodiment of what we really are in relation to Europe, the European Union on that side and the Western Balkans on this side and divided by a corridor right between.

But we have no other choice. We have no other option. There is no other option but continue to love and trust in this our marriage with the EU. I understand that the British Ambassador is not attending this event and it is true that the Brits can afford thinking about divorce after so many years of marriage, while we can’t. Because for us this is the very first time. It is that very first time you have always dreamed about and it is impossible to stop anyone dreaming to marry the one he or she loves.

Without wanting to make things complicated, I am pretty sure you all understand what I am saying, because it is all about two weeks when we most probably will receive the next slap and then we should shake hands and drink something together. It is frustrating, because we are always told we love you and we will be together someday, but still you should keep improving and just improving.

Now I have to make a comment. A year ago, for example, we were told you have done a fantastic job, but you still have a lot of things to do. 57 judges and prosecutors, a magic number. I don’t know why this figure is 57 and not 58, or why not 56, but 57. And then, their number surged over 57 and the reevaluation process, or the vetting has become a kind of French Revolution with its guillotine. Every day, on every Albanian TV channel, you would watch the once-untouchable individuals appearing weak and fragile in front of the vetting commission they were all removed from the system, freeing the country’s justice system from corrupt individuals. Corruption level has increased among politicians and public authorities over the past 30 years, but, trust me, it is unmatchable and incomparable with the network of the so-called untouchable that has been undone once and for all now and that was the network of corrupt judges and prosecutors. They represented the power of corruption. It was them the ones who fed corruption and everything had become relative. And a year later, we are no longer talking about 57 but over 100 corrupt judges and prosecutors already removed from the justice system.

But what is the problem now? The problem now is that the Constitutional Court is not operational. Yes, but we were told that we should cleanse the justice system of the corrupt people. So, when you perform a surgical intervention on someone’s body, you should decide from which viewpoint you would look at it, because, thanks God, there are still wise men and women in Europe, who still continue referring to the dead we mentioned earlier. Angela Merkel is a champion of this and she has stated something I would like everyone to hear and it was actually heard by the members of the parliamentary group. I will quote German Chancellor: We are saying that Albania has no Constitutional Court and this is a failure. But didn’t we ask Albanians to clean up their justice system and are they to blame for cleaning the system? They did exactly that and now that the system is clean, no Constitutional Court is operational. Should we blame them for this, or congratulate them for the job they have done?

Of course, a country cannot become an EU member state when the Constitutional Court in that country is not operational. But we are not seeking to join the bloc today, we are just seeking to continue and go on a journey that will take a lot and a long time. This means that the next stage will be that towards making the Constitutional Court operational. Bu the fact that the Constitutional Court is not functioning for now shows success and not failure.

At least there is one person who thinks just like I do. I have always said it; we are now two of us. Thanks God, the other person has the power and influence to make Germany say “Yes” to opening the accession negotiations. I personally failed to do so.

Sometimes people think that by making such statements I am “seeking to blame Europe”. No, I am not blaming Europe, but who else more than France has the right to say and think that Europe is not functioning properly, since France is one of the two EU founders. Who else more than France would think that the EU actually needs to change, its methodology and approach need to change. Is this legitimate? By the way, I personally, as someone who is not part of Europe yet has a strong connection with Europe, may agree on this aspect. But what I don’t really understand is that while Europe can start of process of deepening its reforms, just like French President Macron states, how comes that you ask us to stop deepening our reforms? Because it would have been absolutely impossible for us to press ahead with the justice reform should we had no full support from the United States and Europe and if we were not longing to become part of this family. We would have not succeeded.  Why didn’t we implement such reform earlier? By the way, since we mentioned the institutions, why we didn’t build them earlier and why the revaluation and vetting process is so successful? Because it is this internal flame found among the citizens, the government, among those who are implementing this process, and of course it is thanks to the constant support we have had, otherwise how could we have reined on this power of corruption that was the most untouchable of all networks.

I tell you, there is no other way, nothing else. There is neither other choice, nor other solution. But it is unfair and even unwise. I highlighted Kosovo as an example and then all of a sudden someone asks: What is this tariff all about? Where did it come from?

We thought such things didn’t exist anymore. The tariff! Will something else much more worrying than the tariff would follow? Or is there something more disturbing than this that was more worrying than the tariff?

Let’s look at the symptoms to better understand the body temperature.

Meanwhile, we have come to the point with Kosovo and Serbia talking with each other and their leaders trying to understand each other, and at the same time we should understand and…[inaudible]. Because it would be understandable that there are other people with their own body temperature and their own way of thinking and who say: ‘Listen, you are progressing very well, yet, at the moment, we face our own problems.” But they are not acknowledging this. They say: “Yes, terrible things are happening.” They are the same people who initially impose three conditions, later make them five and sometimes later impose nine or 99 conditions about the same thing. Where is the reward for what we have done then? What is this? Is this all just to fool us?

At least, there is a difference here. There is a functioning justice system. Your justice system is functional, but ours not and we are working to make it operational.

Regarding freedom, we enjoy the very same freedom of speech to speak our mind and say whatever we think about all this.

To conclude, let me say that, yes I know we face major problems that need to be tackled, because building and consolidating institutions is the essential problem. Remember the example I provided about the border between the US and Mexico. It’s something similar, not that dramatic, but quite similar. So we are divided by a border, stretching all around us, and I am sure that 99% of MEPs in national parliaments are not aware that the Western Balkans are surrounded by EU borders. 99% of MPs in EU member states think that the Western Balkans lie somewhere between Turkey and Georgia.  Trust me, because I happened to meet even leaders who ask: Is it true that you are surrounded by the EU borders? How comes? Greece is a EU member. A refugee should first go to Greece, a EU member, exit then EU and cross the territory of North Macedonia, Serbia and enter again the EU territory.

What I am trying to say is quite simple. First and foremost, this is all a matter of security. Everyone is talking about security, various crisis, new crisis and problems coming with the new era. Why is so difficult to figure out that the Western Balkans are indispensable to the European Union, just like EU is indispensable to us, but for reasons of other nature. It doesn’t take to be a scientist to understand this. One doesn’t even need to be a historian, or a magician to understand it, because it is quite obvious when thinking about what we are asking for. Are we asking for more money? No.

Are we asking for the right to vote in the EU be granted? No.

Are we seeking to annoy Brussels and gain the right to vote in the Council? No.

We are just asking for the next recipe and remedy and to build institutions. Look at North Macedonia for example. It is obvious that North Macedonia was the example of the shining city upon hill until the country was blocked and the decline started in every domain to end up then in an autocratic and gllomy autocratic system. Why? Because they were deprived of the source of fuel, the feeder which is the European Union. And not the European Union as an automatic teller machine to withdraw money from, but it is the EU whose dead keep inspiring us from their grave.

Thank you very much and may it live long!

*Simultaneous interpretation