Prime Minister Edi Rama on Wednesday attended the European Forum Alpbach being held in the Austrian city of Alpbach.
The European Forum Alpbach (EFA) is a platform that drives ideas for an empowered and democratic Europe. This Forum brings together the next generation of leaders in Europe with the most innovative minds, decision-makers and experts from politics, business, sciences, culture and civil society to work together from all over the world to engage and contribute to its mission. This year’s European Forum Alpbach (EFA) is examining and discussing the four themes that are central to Europe: climate, security, finance and democracy and the rule of law.
* * *
-Matthew Helmut Karnitsching, POLITICO’s chief Europe correspondent: Prime Minister Rama, you have an interesting position, as you are a NATO member, but Albania has yet to join the European Union. I would like to discuss the EU reactions to this crisis in particular and whether there has been this awakening everyone is now talking about? How do you see the EU actions during the half year of this crisis?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: First of all, it is actually not an interesting position at all, as we are seeking to join the EU too. However, it is for sure a way to see it as an interesting thing.
My understanding of things is that this war is actually challenging the very foundations of our Western societies and I think that eventually the real question is not about how much the war wakes up, because bombs usually wake up everyone, and you can’t certainly sleep, but how much resilient the West can be, knowing that the threshold of pain of Russians is actually much higher and knowing that taking the champagne from someone who is used to drink champagne sounds somehow more painful than taking bread from the table of someone who is used not to eat a lot of bread. So, the real question here is resilience.
If I were to add another point as part of this discussion, that point is that I don’t see Europe changing in any aspects. It is true that Europe is demonstrating more solidarity, a stronger sense of togetherness, more meetings – and Europe is best in holding many meetings.
The thing is how Europe itself is changing. And it doesn’t look like Europe is changing in a way. So it is more a kind of inertia between a war with the Russians, on one side, and the Ukrainians and Americans, who are providing a huge support and Europe that is joining this support with every EU member state doing as much as they can do. But there is not something like Europe, because there are different countries sharing a common position in principle, but at the end it doesn’t look like everything is in place for everyone to be extremely optimistic.
– Matthew Helmut Karnitsching, POLITICO’s chief Europe correspondent: Prime Minister Edi Rama, a lot of promises have been made to your country regarding the EU accession process, just like other Western Balkan countries, prior to the war. Do you feel that there is now a fresh stimulus to take the EU accession process forward or you keep hearing the same old things? Because, Korcok too, pointed out how Europe can’t pretend to become a geopolitical player unless it fixes first its own backyard. What do you think?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: I have to thank Ivan, because he perfectly elaborated, as a skilful diplomat, what I was trying to highlight as an artist. The thing is the following:
If we are to see it in an overall view, we would actually feel good. However, if we were to look into some details, we would figure out that what we seen in the overall panorama, for example the readiness to impose sanctions, the first package of sanctions, the second package, the third one and so on and so for, this is reacting and certainly a good way to react, but at the same time it is not a proactive action to change some things that are there and that are crying for justice.
What is the point of this so-called geopolitical awakening, when you have the Western Balkans, right there at the heart of Europe and you have the European Union –to my knowledge – being the only geographical reality, since the history of maps started, with an outside border and an inside border, because if you wish to travel and enter the Western Balkan countries, one should first enter the European Union. One can’t enter any of the Western Balkan countries without first crossing the European Union.
In other words, this is a geographical reality that is primarily not being rightly dealt with politically. In the meantime, the visa regime has been liberalized for dozens of millions of people from countries like Ukraine, Georgia, whereas 2 million Kosovo citizens are being held hostage in the heart of Europe. Why?
Second, take a look at what is happening with both North Macedonia and Albania. I didn’t actually want to go back to this issue, because I thought it was already over, but let’s go over it for the sake of this discussion. A NATO member, namely Bulgaria, right at the peak of the war, “kidnaps” two other NATO countries. What for?
It is all about some history issues and the European Union simply becoming a powerless cathedra of nations in front of a state seeking to settle some historical issues, so to say. I have nothing against such historical claims, but when historical issues are left on the hands of the politicians, there is no chance to solve the old issues, but the stakes are high that the politicians actually trigger fresh historical issues.
Third, I think that if the French idea about the new European political community, before the war could be actually seen as a way to skip the real issue, namely accession, the EU accession has today the huge potential to be handled, elaborated and be used as an element of success in creating something new and bring everyone around the table, because although we are not EU, we have the E, although still missing the U. The U we miss is like being a second category European.
– Do you feel there is a stimulus?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Don’t ask how I feel, because you would be disappointed. I am just trying to tell you what I actually think. This is not about feelings at all. We are at the heart of Europe, but these guys gather in Brussels and decide to distribute vaccines and they don’t care at all to nicely say that these six countries in the middle of Europe need at least a sign of solidarity, by telling these countries “we have some vaccine doses for your doctors and nurses.” No, they don’t do that. And guess what. We have to run to China, to Russia and to Turkey.
While when we discuss the geo-strategy it is about third actors that shouldn’t be allowed to come to the Western Balkans, but when it comes to a question of life and death, it is China to save a lot of lives in the Western Balkans; it is Russia and it is Turkey. We wouldn’t succeed in securing COVID-19 vaccines without the help of the President of Turkey.
I think time is now to create this community, where no matter whether we lack the U in the EU thing, we can still sit together with others to discuss pressing issues like climate change, the war, international sanctions, because how one is supposed to maintain unity, how one can maintain the unity of purposes.
We can move much faster forward and change the entire nature of our power production. But, to deliver on that, we need Saudi Arabia, for example. We need to look towards the Middle East. I am naming Saudi Arabia because there is a huge potential to create cooperation based on the 2030 vision, which is also about exporting, so to make Saudi Arabia – just imagine, a country sitting on oil that wants to become self-sufficient in green energy and net exporter of green energy.
I have a very last point and it is something I think about a lot. Because of the democratic nature of our societies, not only because of that, but also because of the free ride of the fake news in all our environments, we face a huge disadvantage, because while we can’t breach Putin’s wall of propaganda, Putin on his part can breach the curtain of information in our countries every single day. So this is also a huge opportunity to seriously think about how to fight fake news. The freedom of reach is not freedom of speech and while the freedom of reach has become totally untouchable, the freedom of speech is becoming increasingly less powerful.
