Address by Prime Minister Edi Rama at today’s session of the Parliament:

 

Just few days ago, speaking at the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, Commissioner Hahn stated unequivocally that Albania has made steady progress and that the Progress Report, due to be released by end of May, will issue the unconditional recommendation that the EU opens immediately the membership negotiations with Albania. Reaffirmation of the unconditional recommendation for second time by the Commission is an unconditional reaffirmation of a very simple truth: Albania has met all the criteria for opening the European Union membership negotiations.

It is incredibly important for everyone to understand that opening the negotiations is a decision that is to be made by the European Council, which consists of the heads of state or government of the member states, based on the Commission’s recommendation, but also as a result of the internal dynamics in the member states. This means that if the Commission’s report is a document drafted exclusively on the technical criteria after verifying each and every step in meeting all the tasks set for the opening of negotiations, while the decision-making by the European Council is the result of the internal debate in that Council, which exceeds the technical criteria and where the political subjectivity of the member states plays its own role. So, as to the political subjectivity of the member states we should very clear that our influence is relative, moreover given the fact that in Albania there are forces clearly lined up to move forward with the country’s European integration and opening of the membership talks and by this I mean all the political forces in this parliament that undoubtedly represent the overwhelming public opinion and pursue a perennial tradition of this Parliament, where the precedent of the division on this issue has been set most recently by those who have taken to the streets today, meaning that we are in the conditions when they feed the anti-EU parties, which do not welcome the opening of negotiations, with material against this country’s interest. This is very simple and easy to understand by anyone who wants to understand. There is no possible excuse for exporting the internal conflicts and, moreover, for inciting internal conflicts in order to hinder such decision-making and forge alliances with forces that resolutely reject the EU enlargement and, consequently, rejecting any step towards the advancement of Albania and other countries, not just Albania, in this process.

Unfortunately, from the point of view of the political unity regarding this national rather than a partisan objective we lag far behind we used to over the years in the past, when, despite the arguments, conflicts and debates that have coupled the country’s democratic development, the political forces have always found a common ground and have been firm on this objective.

However, what we can do is to continue to persist in launching and delivering on reforms, continue to insist on exactly performing our duties, not because Brussels is asking us to do that, nor because we should please Germany, France or other member states but because this is the only way to build a functional state up to parameters of a member state of the European Union.

Today we have entered a crucial moment in the implementation process of the judiciary reform, which is a key reform through which all inherited problematic of impunity will be addressed systematically, including the systematic fight against corruption and whoever is used to speak and recite by heart, even in the various democratic spaces of the EU member states, “the big fish” thing, should be provided a pretty simple answer on what kind of fish are all of those who have been already excluded from the justice system? Are they small fish? How much did they weigh on the shoulders of this country and how much have they prevented this country from developing a systemic fight against either crime or corruption, in investigation processes or in court proceedings, and the answer is very clear: they have hindered the country extremely a lot.

They have hampered the country a lot, setting extremely dangerous precedents that have become the norm, turning impunity into the norm.

Today, we are still far from being there where we are heading to, but thanks to the judiciary reform we have gone way too far compared to the point we started from, as in 2018, as the Report clearly states, the Independent Qualification Commission, otherwise known as the vetting process, has passed through a sieve some 92 judges and prosecutors, with 35 of them have been dismissed immediately. A total of 60 prosecutors and judges have been removed from the justice system to date. Over 60 judges and prosecutors excluded from the justice system means that a heavy burden has now been removed from the shoulders of this country and it has helped a lot the process of building functioning and independent justice institutions. Likewise, two new justice bodies have been created today and, on the other hand, the foundation for the rather sooner creation of the special anticorruption prosecutor’s office, SPAK, have been laid.

The justice reform is irreversible. It will move forward intensely and Albania, sooner rather than later, will certainly start feeling the outcomes, even beyond the tangible and significant results of the vetting process. Of course, on the other hand, it must be clearly told to everyone that the vetting process is just one side of the medal and that the exclusion from the justice system of those who are unfit to the new system, is just one side of a story that will go on with the construction of new justice bodies and many of these excluded prosecutors and judges will one day return before these new justice institutions, this time not to undergo vetting, but to be punished, as their unjustified wealth cannot go unreported and without being investigated by a system that is being built with every attributes to go to the bottom of an irreversible process and prevent same story from happening again in the future.

On the other hand, of course Albania faces an inherited problem of corruption that is now being tackled and fought like never before. I have stated and I want to reiterate it today in my capacity as Prime Minister; the fight against corruption is first and foremost a fight to modernize the state and it is exactly this part that takes time and patience, as well as incredible persistence and determination, as daily investigation and punishments won’t be enough, but it should include mechanisms that not only have the capacity to investigate and punish, but also prevent and make corruption impossible.

If in a consolidated EU member state nobody would ever cross his mind to offer bribes in exchange of a public service, this is not because of the fact that they are more honest or less corrupt people. No! This is a result of the fact that those countries have a system in place that doesn’t fuel corruption, because it is not the people to corrupt the system, but it is the systems that corrupt people and in order to tackle corruption we need to reform and transform the systems that corrupt.

In this regard, I can confidently state and argue to anyone who is ready to provide facts and figures, rather than the mud and stones thrown by the trash media on the daily basis after being fuelled by the fire of corruption, how corruption is being fought today by providing facts and figures.

I would provide not merely statistical facts, which will be revealed by the Minister of Justice here in Parliament, but a fresh fact. The fact that thanks to the interaction with the citizens via the online platform Albania We Want, a co-governance platform launched primarily to help and assist the citizens, this country’s ordinary people when facing a situation with them having been always forced to offer bribes, we have recorded over 25 000 complaints during the period from October 2017 through October 2018 and there are around 2000 individual or community issues raised by the citizens that are being addressed by the government each month. They are not all complaints over potential corruption practices, yet they are 2000 tangible issues that concern people and that are tackled on time by the government every cabinet member.

To be honest and true, please tell me when this has happened ever before? Tell me what was the place or the address where thousands of ordinary citizens of this country could head to whenever the doors of state offices were slammed in their face when asking for a public service. Where was it? They had to persist in their efforts to contact the MP? Something that could happen or not, but in most of cases failed to produce a result, because the MP himself or herself, although committed, was unable to make it break the closed and non-transparent service system. The next address was the political party, influential friends and, in most of cases, bribery.

It is not that the citizens should not dig into their pockets whenever asking for a public service, yet today there is a real new opportunity and we are using it maximally and by using it we make sure that we tackle thousands of thousands problems of citizens with the state, where traditionally corruption has been thriving. The corruption is being fought through administrative investigations that ensue a citizen’s complaint and punishment for every public official and employee, when the prove finds evidence that actions to deny public service delivery to citizens have been suspicious or worse, deliberate. Some 445 officials and public administration employees have been subject to disciplinary actions and warnings and cases referred to the Prosecutor’s office during the period from May through November 2018.

Another aspect related to this battle is the fight against crime in a country where people are under the pressure of a rampant propaganda from dawn to dusk. Prior to this Parliament’s session I read a news published on a national media “electrical failure causes fire in Tepelena, no damages reported.”

Would you please tell me, is this a news story that should make the national headlines?

Is this story that should be widely disseminated to the public, telling that “an electrical failure caused fire, but no damages have been reported?”

Dozens of such news stories are published every day, thousands every month.

Meanwhile, facts show that the fight against organized crime is a systematic and a daily fight. Indeed, if we are to refer to only one aspect of this fight, the Power of Law operation has conducted 22 operations against structured criminal groups and 175 suspects have been arrested and criminal assets worth 20 million euros have been sequestered.

Some 160 million euros in crime proceeds, or 10 times higher than during the eight years of the previous centre right government, has been sequestered during this government’s term in office.

I won’t go over details on the fight against narcotics, but I want to emphasize that in this aspect too, beyond the fact that we have completely eradicated the inherited phenomenon of cannabis planting and trafficking, the number of cases referred to the Prosecutor’s office has significantly increased in the first six months of 2018.

Around 91% of perpetrators and narcotics cultivation and trafficking are arrested. The rest are declared wanted.

On the other hand, I want to emphasize another aspect that again is a significant aspect in this process, that is the public administration reform. We have heard a lot of stuff, but the truth is that we are taking every step on the path towards reforming and improving the Civil Service of the Republic of Albania and we have already opened a whole new chapter by making public administration vacancies available to best performing students and graduates with grade point average 9 to 10. It is a recently launched process and the first batch of 373 excellent students have already joined the public administration. A second call has been launched and several hundred other students have applied. In the meantime, other specific calls, including the most recent call launched by the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, or other calls that are being prepared to make vacancies available to the best performing ones and putting an end to political appointments to the government jobs and the Socialist Party is the only political force committed to fighting this ugly heritage of the past and create conditions that the best ones don’t complain that their parents’ sacrifices and their efforts had been in vain, because the candidates for these job positions have been already handpicked and the pre-employment test is fictitious.

Another aspect related to the process and the report I am talking about is the aspect of minority and property rights. Progress has been made in this aspect too. We are easily verifiable about what we say regarding this aspect by providing concrete facts and no propaganda.

The economic criterion is the most delicate part, because we always risk facing scepticism or a sense of refusal from people who rightly ask for more when speaking about economic growth and unemployment decrease. No matter how much Albania’s economy grows it is still insufficient for the people who move their head to show approval. However, it is a fact – and I am not saying this – it is there in black and white on the World Bank’s report on the region that Albania recorded the highest economic growth in the region and we account for the half of the jobs created in the whole region in 2018. This is a fact. The WB or European Commission’s reports provide objective figures as they are result of a scrupulous and technical work and are not based on the statistics from the internal sources.

In conclusion, I believe, just like I believed last year, Albania fully deserves to open the EU membership negotiations, just like I state loudly and without hesitating that our friends and partners, including even the most sceptic ones, acknowledge that no country has done as much as Albania has prior to opening the accession negotiations. By this I’m referring to a simple fact.

How it comes – it is there in black and white on several reports and declarations and it has been acknowledged in any talks with those who were directly involved in the process – that the whole region, including the countries that have already opened the accession talks, should use the model of justice reform Albania is implementing?

So we have created a model that is valuable to the whole region, while other countries are already negotiating, whereas Albania should still wait to see the membership negotiations open!

Our anticipation for the membership negotiations to open, and this is the most important part to us as a government and ruling majority, is not related to what we have done, it depends on how much the others are ready to face the internal political battle against the EU enlargement in some countries, in France for example. While France is governed by a President who is a champion of pro-Europeanism in whole Europe today, yet when it comes to further enlargement of the bloc, when it comes to opening the accession negotiations with Albania, the French authorities are sceptical.

It is understandable. After all, there are interests of political nature that do not match at a certain moment, because it is known and it is no secret that member states defend their interests during discussions at the European Council and at certain moments internal interests prevail over the grand strategy and the necessary understanding on that strategy, but, as far as we are concerned, we have done and continue to do our job.

Whether the accession talks will open in June is a question that should be answered by the European Council, but the answer we can provide based on facts and based on the recommendation from the most objective judge of this process, that is the European Commission, is “Yes, Albania has done everything it needs to do in order to open the negotiations. This is what we should do on our part. The rest, which is our part too, but we have little or no opportunity to influence upon, is the role against opening the membership talks being played by those who spare no single opportunity to sling mud at Albania and not at us. They sling mud at Albania and not at us, because their mud has only one effect on us, it makes us live longer. It strengthens us and helps us to stay longer in office, just because of a simple fact that the majority of Albanians, not only are they ready to be fooled, but on the contrary, they become angry and despite all understandable reasons to show dissatisfaction, to criticize us and ask for more from us, they still know quite well that there is only one political force that can take this process and Albania forward and that is the Socialist Party of Albania.

Once again, I would like to reiterate our quite clear stance. They have left and it is in their right to do so and it is in their right not to take part in the elections. Our task is not to prevent anyone from taking part in the elections, but not to convince them to do so. We haven’t been tasked with this. We wouldn’t succeed even we were to take over this responsibility. Therefore, we can’t assume tasks that we are not in our competences. It is up to them whether to participate or not to participate in the elections. Our duty is to win the elections and move ahead with a huge and not an easy at all battle to deal with our problems, our shortcomings and mistakes and work hard to improve ourselves every day and become valuable and worth to the country and the citizens. As to the dialogue and cooperation opportunities, we have discussed this issue during the previous session of the parliament. The opposition will be granted an observer chair in the Commission on the electoral reform and they will enjoy a special observer status as they can either contribute or veto the things they disagree, because we don’t want them to be eliminated. We want to defeat them in 2021 based on rules we shall determine and jointly approve. So they have enough time to reflect until 2021, they would have enough time to organize and improve themselves and we will then see what the Albanian people think at the moment of electoral confrontation.

Thanking all those who have contributed to this process and expressing the conviction that not only will we continue, but will continue with more persistence every day, despite the outcome of the European Council meeting in June. I also believe that those who do not want the negotiations and think that by blocking the negotiations they will take over the power in Albania, they will be deeply disappointed, as it has happened in the past, because we are the ones that will open the negotiations, we win the elections and we are going to bring Albania into the European Union.

Just remember what I am telling you today. I do not know when Albania will join the European Union, as it does not depend only on us and you see for yourselves what debates are going on with some candidates on the television debates as part of the European Parliament elections campaign and their debate focuses on whether one country or another would join the EU by 2025. I do not know when it will happen, but I know that when it happens the Socialist Party will be here and will be the ruling majority.

Thank you!