Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama on the occasion of “Europe’s Day”:

I would like to thank Ambassador Vlahutin for choosing this place to celebrate a new date in history compared to the antiquity of these stones.

I do not believe that it is only a smoothed image of a romantic Albania, of a sleeping beauty within ancient porticoes on a bed of green and blue that persuaded the Ambassador to celebrate here today, Europe Day.

I am convinced that this is really the right place for this celebration, if I think that under a similar sunset, according to Virgil and Jean Racine, the Greek Orestes asked Pyrrhus of Epirus for the consecration of a long-term peace, right here in Butrint.

Here again, Aeneas of Troy decided under a similar sunset to start his journey that would lead him, according to the legend, in the heart of Latiumit, in the heart of Rome.

Characters as legendary as authentic that embody the aspiration to find the right direction, with their history make the theatre of Butrint not only an aesthetic stage, but as yesterday make it today and always a political stage.

Navel of Europe’s aspiration and not a limit of the sleepy beauty’s kingdom, Butrint appears as one of the cradles where the European idea of universality was nurtured.

Every stone and column in this country makes a muffled but incessant echo of the geometry of this idea.

Stripped of any megalomania, open to diversity and wise dialogue, more than any other idea, it remains a utopia of the possible, as it was referred to by Count of Coudenhove-Kalergi, one of the fathers of Europe, whose ancestral origins were of Ionian isles.

And, in fact, if the parallelism between this date and the surrender of the Nazi garrison of Prague on May 9, 1945, that marked the end of World War II in Europe, is legitimate, the symbol of this day goes even beyond.

When Germany and France signed on May 9, 1950 a declaration which created the first nucleus of a concrete European cooperation, history vindicated an ancient and embodied vision and not an errant dreaming flight.

“Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity.”

With these words, Robert Schuman would show the right direction, although the sealing of aspirations for reconciliation between France and Germany, the declaration of 9 May, would take its whole historical meaning, being open to be signed by any European country that wanted to get involved in this magnificent adventure of a common future.

As every drama that is prepared in such an amphitheater, Europe’s Day as well contains a moral of its own.

If, as we have not stopped repeating, Europe needs the Balkans, this fact is not bound by a rhetorical figure or a pirouette of style, but by a historical reality and a need which is inevitable today more than ever.

And now, while contemplating the night of history that is cradling us all in this moment in Butrint, I would like to conclude this speech with the cry coming from the heart of Jean Psichari, a great French writer, which Robert Schuman and Coudenhove-Kalergi would have not denied:

“Ancestors of Brittany, of the Adriatic lagoons, of Paros, Albania, Chios and Istanbul, you that with your blood coagulated in our veins a European blood and heroism” be witnesses in this temple of eternity that for Albanians, every day that follows this night, will be today and forever the day of the heart, the day of Europe.

Enjoy the concert!