Prime Minister Edi Rama today attended the Global Gateway Forum 2023 together with together representatives of governments from the European Union and from around the world with the private sector, civil society, leading thinkers, financing institutions, and international organisations in an extended discussion on issues relating to global investment in infrastructure, including challenges faced by the public and private sectors, best practices and lessons learned.

The EU’s Global Gateway strategy connects countries and regions around the world, by encouraging public and private investment in a global network of transportation and supply chains, green energy, modern telecommunications, education and research, all with an emphasis on sustainable development and on European values, such as good governance, transparency and equal partnership. 

Prime Minister Edi Rama delivered the following remarks on the Forum’s day 1:

I am extremely honoured to be here today and to have been granted the privilege to speak in front of this hall and, by the way, I can’t recall the last time I have seen a hall with not a single empty chair.  It looks like Communist Party meeting, but – thank God – it is not and I am sure that each of you has come here only of your own free will, and none of you has been forced to do so, even though the EU forces people.

When I was told I have only 5 minutes available, I was thinking that working with the EU you should always keep two things in mind: work hard and talk less.

We have already successfully working on the first, yet we have yet to deliver on the latter. So I hope I won’t talk so long that Ursula thinks it’s not worth inviting me anymore. Coming here and seeing all these people, all these dignitaries from everywhere reminded me of Ursula’s first speech as President of the Commission, where she underlined her ambition for the Commission to be a geopolitical Commission and I have to say that events have helped him for better and for worse, because I don’t think there has been any Commission before, at least as far as I can remember, that has had to deal with such an incredible flow of events, from the pandemic to the Russian aggression on Ukraine and the cruelty we all witnessed in Israel just a few weeks ago.

On the other hand, I have to say that all these events have helped to shape the work of the Commission in a way that has been quite useful, especially for those who have felt being left out earlier. As our African or other friends can testify, so can we.

I come from a country called Albania, part of a region called the Balkans. The Western Balkans is surrounded by the borders of the EU, yet we are not the EU, we are only “E”, without “U”!

We have had to live with this, with some sense of isolation, not in the terrible meaning in which the term comes up in memory, but in such a way that we have always felt as if we were doomed to be second-class citizens of this continent and this has changed and is changing day to day.

A few days ago, we hosted the European Commission, its President and many others in Tirana for a Summit, which would have been unimaginable just a few years ago; a Summit that brought together the Western Balkans and the European Union leaders to look to the future.

We were very happy to hear the President of the Commission announcing a very ambitious plan for this region there, called the “New Growth Plan.” This is really music to our ears. Yes, reforms are necessary. Yes, further democratization is necessary. Yes, alignment with the European Union values and principles is essential, but as Angela Merkel once said: “Highways do not work properly without democracy, but democracy without highways cannot function perfectly.” Thus, infrastructure is necessary.

As President Macky Sall put it before I took the floor, Europe, its strength lies in the strength to politically and economically transform itself, its neighbors and, I would add, its friends. 

Europe – by the way – the European Union, not us yet, is rather a tough creature to deal with and it takes sufficiently strong nerves, you have to be prepared enough not to let depression take hold of you before the EU does.

Meanwhile, it’s tough love. It is a path that you have to walk on where you learn lessons and where because of frustration you sometimes think that there are shortcuts in other directions, but I must say that in no other direction will you find a friend and an ally who is strong and will never ever attack you. And that it will never, never attack anyone and that it will always try to help everyone, and this is what the European Union is all about.

On the other hand, I would like to say that this openness that we are witnessing thanks to this ever closer relationship with the European Union, is essential not only for the future of the Western Balkans, but also for the European Union itself.

I am pretty sure the same goes for our African friends, the same goes for everyone else too, that one can surely find in this relation so many reasons to wonder whether it is worth it. However, on the other hand there is nothing worth more than getting closer and closer to the European Union For us Albanians, who have experienced a history that has forced us into arranged marriages, believe us, this may be the most difficult marriage to make, but the only marriage worth looking for. I am telling you from my personal experience. I have had several failures in marriage, but after finding the right one and being happy with it, I always believe that this will also happen to Albania and others when they marry the European Union. Thank you very much!

I would like to conclude by telling you a fact, because I want you to know that all my smile, all my love, my everything for Europe and the European Union is unconditional, but it is not a blind one. Just consider the fact that we are surrounded by EU borders and our EU neighbours receive 4517 euros per capita from the European Union itself. What we with the “E” and without the “U” receive just 138 euros per capital. It is a huge gap that we fill with love, we fill with hope, ambition and with very clear idea that there could be nothing better that we bequeath to our children, but I sincerely hope that what the President of the Commission and this Commission are working hard to deliver, they will succeed because at the end of the day, our children should inherit not only the testament of love, but also the proof that this marriage is the only one worth having! Thank you!