Prime Minister Edi Rama answers to public via online social networks
Hello everyone!
Today I decided to conduct the interview of the day with you and answer your questions, react to the concerns and give as many explanations as possible about the many topics about this confusing and challenging time.
First of all, I would like to tell everyone that it is important to emphasize that employing all energies to win the war is vitally important and as we enter the fire zone, the motto that the economy falls, but it rises again, while the dead cannot be revived again, and the goal and the mission of all of us a individuals, as family members, citizens of this country and as Albanians is to protect everyone around us and together protect whole Albania and Albanian people. Human life is priceless. Pain and suffering are for the people, but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said. Each and every one of you can find in a relative, family member, parents and everyone else the evidence showing that what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger and should this enemy won’t kill us, it will definitely make us stronger. Our goal is to emerge stronger from this common plight, whereas my goal is to stay closer to the neediest among us, so that they too emerge stronger from this our common plight.
Today, we recorded 27 persons who tested positive for the virus. We are at a very critical moment of the war and taking notice that thanks to the positive performance of this entire common endeavour, many have started thinking more than needed about the future, opting to forget the priorities at this moment, although life protection is a top priority. While reading and constantly following you in a bid to understand and feel you more, I have noticed that many have started demanding things that are still too early to ask for. Many have started complaining about the restrictive measures and started talking a lot more than they should about what is going to come tomorrow.
The future is certainly our common concern. Of course the future seems more difficult to everyone today, even to the ones who are more in trouble than you, and to myself that I have to do everything to stand by you all, help each and every one of you to make sure just like it is the case in every house that no matter how much in trouble today, it doesn’t collapse tomorrow, make sure that our common home doesn’t collapse because of short-sightedness in the use of the income available to us and make sure that the next day is not more difficult than it will normally be for us and for the rest of the world, both the wealthiest to the poorest nations.
Today, if we were not the first to take the due measures and if we were not to meet such a nation-wide understanding and if it was not for the wonderful resistance of 99.99% of Albanians living in the territory of Albania, than the number of the dead would have not been just 17, but we would have now been inside a dark tunnel from where we could not get out without thousands of dead. And it is not me saying this. This is something you can be told by all of those who know well how a virus outbreak spreads and how this invisible and constantly enemy advances to take by surprise even the planet’s superpowers, paralyzing even all armies and defence capacities of the armies on the whole planet, while nobody is able to say whether there is a better remedy and protection rather than the popular resistance. Every leader around the world, also the leaders of the world’s most developed nations that have yet to discover a vaccine, call for popular resistance only.
Based on this positive performance, we can afford thinking about a gradual ease of certain restrictive measures in order to, first and foremost, psychologically ease your lives and our common life, but we are absolutely right and we are obliged not to take any hasty steps. If we are to decide – as we are already thinking about and as I have already hinted few days ago – to start gradually ease certain restrictions, we should in the meantime tighten some other measures, because if we ease them a bit, we will be all endangered by those who don’t want to listen and understand and instead show up here and there violating any rules and threatening to turn into biological bombs. Therefore, what we are considering – and I would be very pleased to see your reaction about this – is that by easing for example the travel restrictions, or by easing the travel by car of those who go to work, then we should strongly toughen sanctions that should be imposed on all of those who would violate this limited space of freedom and we may ask decide for imprisonment of anyone who claims to use private car to go to work and instead uses it to illegally transport other people. This is under an intense discussion here in our joint staff after carefully listening to the opinions of experts with whom I will have a very broad and lengthy discussion.
Let me give you some of those clarifications that I believe are necessary, given your comments, feedback, questions over the last few hours.
As far as the property leases issue, the public debate degenerated into an assault as part of the continued assaults launched by those who unfortunately even in the midst of this war forget to alter the phonograph plate constantly playing the same pre-war unpleasant song, in essence expressing the outcry over the government’s interfere in a private relation between two parties or sides. Of course, if the government was to interfere in a private relation in normal times, namely the relation between the owner and the tenant, this interference would certainly be a scandal. But this is not a normal time. It is wartime. And, at wartime, we have not only the right, but we are also obliged to do everything it takes to protect everyone who is in trouble more than anyone else. Those most in need and the most troubled ones are absolutely a top priority and a responsibility of our common family. In the family of each of us, in the family of each of you, the person to be assisted more than anyone else is the one in trouble at a certain moment. One facing a certain health condition is helped by other family members. The most vulnerable family members are also the ones to receive most help, and children as well. Since unfortunately today they said that the decision was to trigger an Albanian to Albanian social conflict, I want to say that I am very confident that history has told a great truth about Albanians and I believe in that truth; the truth that Albanians are bread, salt and heart. They have been like this all their lives and there is no way they can’t be today, despite the fact that, as in any other nation, there are certain Albanians who are deviation from the norm. Such kind of people has always existed, yet they have failed to prevent the Albanian people from revealing the most virtuous part of themselves at their most difficult moments. I never believe, in principle, that owners will go and grab the tenants by the throat to get them out of the house, when the tenants are the ones who find it impossible to pay today, not because they don’t want to, but because they have isolated themselves inside homes because of the war.
How can a renter kick someone out of house, or someone who has shut down his or her small business and is hoping to survive on a wartime salary only?! How can one evict a student from the house, when he or she has been locked inside and is unable to compensate the rent payment by going to work somewhere else?! How can one evict from home families with members who used to work, but are abiding by stay-at-home orders?! This is the moral side.
Based on this, it would be best for everyone offered a microphone or a camera, or a communication means with the people, before voicing their concerns, they should call on all Albanians who have leased their properties to others, to jointly remember that we must win this war as Albanians.
That said, some claimed today that no government around the world has ever made such a decision. But this is not true. Such a decision has been previously made by Germany, France. Today I learned that the Netherlands has made same decision. But even nobody else has done it; I would do it again and again.
It is not true that the Normative Act on this relationship penalizes the leasers; it is not true that the state interferes taking the tenant’s side. No, the state intervenes to take the tenant’s side in need just for today and for a period of absolute and objective impossibility. On the other side, the Normative Act clearly stipulates that the relation between the two parties cannot be terminated by the leaser, yet the tenant will not be relieved from the obligation to settle the debt in tranche payments.
This has to do a number of categories. France has made such a decision about all categories. We can’t tell companies not to pay their rent. We are not telling big businesses or other medium businesses with an annual turnover of 140, 000 dollars not to pay the rent. But smaller businesses that account for the majority of employment rate and creation of the new jobs, we tell them we stand on your side and we would allow nobody to kick you out of their business premises just because of being unable to pay the rent for a certain period, which coincides with a reasonable horizon vis-à-vis the war dynamics. This is what the governments of other countries have done by setting a certain deadline. Germany has set end of June as the deadline.
On the other hand, we are not telling certain people who own a property and live on the lease payment. I am saying this because I have received a series of text messages from these individuals, or by others on behalf of these persons, because many of those who write on behalf of these individuals to express their others’ plight have nothing to do with their plight, but I am talking about those who really face this problem. I already stated it yesterday and I am reiterating it. The Normative Act will be detailed and the General Taxation Directorate will issue certain orders and the individuals who earn their living on these lease payments and have no other income, will certainly benefit support from the government during this period. We will provide subsidies to them, just like we will provide subsidies to the small businesses that will not pay the rent until the deadline, which may be postponed and we will not leave them alone when facing the leaser.

The state subsidy doesn’t mean entire lease payment, but a part of it based on the calculations and the well-defined categories. Things cannot be done for free. This was the case during the pyramidal schemes and it is quite easy for the “Sude” party to keep doing things this way, incurring then a huge debt to the GDP ratio that would have deeply shocked France too. If we were to implement that bill, which is described as a magic recipe, then we should have stopped paying pensions for two or three months. A Sude-like magical recipe.
Albanians have always shared their bread with others.
Albanians have never died of hunger, even in the darkest days of history. And surely nobody will die of hunger, not even in this war. This is the minimum, yet this is for sure.
In response to your concerns, once again please be patient and just tell me what you imagine and what you think, because honestly our imagination is unable to figure out what we can do for those working in shadow economy. We’ve seen all the practices, absolutely. We have absolutely examined all draft packages. I am talking about a large number of countries in the region, Europe and the United States, of course not to compare with the funds a number of countries have allocated, because it is impossible to draw a comparison between the fiscal packages made available by various countries, but the comparison should be drawn in relation to the GDP and the state budget of a country and I can tell you that our financial package is not smaller than the package of other countries and it is estimated at 2.2% of the GDP for such a short period of time. But there is a bigger problem when it comes to the employment in the shadow economy. It is true that there artisans, plumbers, electricians, painters and plasterers who work in the shadow economy and they are in real trouble, because they cannot go to work due to the stay-at-home orders. But I beg those really working in the illegal economy, and not those who have nothing to do with working and have never worked in their lifetime, but just cheated in tests to send comments and opinions about global issues and how state should address the plight of all of those working in the shadow economy and who are unable to go to work today. If we were to pledge that we would pay a salary to everyone who has been working illegally in shadow economy, then you should know for sure that everyone, also those employed to distribute comments via the Facebook would claim to have been working illegally. That’s why, the only solution we have come up with – one that no other country is currently applying – we have asked every individual working in the shadow company to report every company or individual that have paid them illegally so that we can verify these companies and individuals and order them to pay the salaries to their workers. As part of the new eased and restrictive measures we are conceiving also a measure due to be imposed on entrepreneurs who could face criminal charges. But for this measure to work, people should first report them.
[Comment via social networks] Comrade Prime Minister, consumers should not have electricity cut off due to inability to pay their bills.
PM Rama: Every consumer who consumes electricity and fails to settle the bill will have the electricity supply disconnected. Electricity is a commodity, just like any other commodity that everyone buys in a shop. Have you ever seen anybody attacking the bread-seller just because the latter asks him or her to pay for the bread? Electricity is provided through generation and if we were to commit the sin of writing  off the electricity bills, then we won’t be able to survive a huge economic and social darkness in the future. The electricity bills should be paid in full and the company distributing power needs a fund in order to continue to operate. If the power distribution company fails to collect the electricity bills, then it would be unable to import electricity. In the event of such a failure, then we will be forced to make available to the company entire funding we are now providing under the current economic package.
The other topic is that of the economic assistance. I see a group, not an organized one, but a category of people, who shamelessly mock, ridicule, curse, and insult thousands of people who are sacrificing their own lives by going door to door to deliver food bags to people in need. I would explain it, and this is to make it clear to all of those that more than once have alleged that the relief supplies are being distributed to our friends and the party militants. My dear friends, the relief supplies include food packages, medicine supplies or other basic services distributed to certain families. As many as 147, 663 families have been supplied with such relief materials to date. As to the food bags, I would not like to show you the potato bags that were being distributed yesterday to the needy families and social categories in the French city of Bordeaux, but I want to tell everyone this is a war for survival and if you have happened to see food bags, when you see them you should first understand that none of those in need for our help in order to survive will be never left alone.
The things you simply call plastic bags, are not bags, but the stretched hand of solidarity. I want to express respect for all individuals involved in the humanitarian operation and what’s more funny is that all these people receiving the food bags, they have no Facebook account. The people who receive those bags are grateful. The State Reserves have determined a standard food package and the relief supplies distributed initially by the municipal teams were not standard ones, but were solidarity aid. The “Different Weekend” Foundation, with which we cooperate closely, has also provided and distributed food packages. The standard food package contains 4 kg of pasta; 5 kg of rice, 2 litres of oil, 2 kg of sugar; 2 kilos of salt; 2 kilos of sauce, 4 kilos of beans, 25 kilos of wheat flour, 5 kilos of detergents, and five bars of soap. And such a package is for two weeks only. Such a food package has been delivered to all quake-affected families currently housed in tents. We fully understand those who complain, because they are of course in troubles today, but one should not forget that there are people still living in tents  and they are not allowed to leave their homes, but their tents. And this is not a movie, but a reality.
Other families in all 61 municipalities across the country have received packages meeting basic needs. That’s why there have been packages, as well as bags. Not every municipality can afford distributing standard packages, according to the standard set by the State Reserves. If you find these insufficient for someone to survive, then you probably either don’t have the eyes to see the truth and reality, or you mistakenly think this is a time to eat and drink, send messages and to ask for a lot more. Yet, this is not the case.
[Question via social networks] Is it true that call center companies have not been closed, but workers are unable to go to work as public, or private transport means have been banned? What is going to happen?
These two contradict each other. It is absolutely true that a number of workers are unable to go to work at these enterprises. We have consciously agreed to allow more time for these enterprises to take all measures, when unable to create the required safe distance space. We are considering plan to ease few measures – and this is not going to happen today, or tomorrow, but somehow later – to allow all those individuals working in private companies or in large or small businesses, use their own private vehicle to go to work. But again, I ask everyone, do you agree that such eased measure be accompanied by a much stronger and restrictive measure, which doesn’t imply only imposing fines, but imprisonment? Tell me, do you agree or not?
[Question via social networks] What will happen with students who have paid the annual dormitory accommodation fee? Will the best performing students continue to benefit scholarship?
The excellent students will have their scholarship paid in full. We don’t consider the excellent or best performing students as individuals on vacations, but decent people who are currently isolated in their homes because of the trouble befalling us all, but they still continue to study. We will not revoke the scholarship payment to other students too, as they are isolated not because they are not willing to go to school. The scholarship payment we provide to students will help also their families to cope with the current difficult situation. That’s why we will continue to provide this cash assistance to students.
As to the ideas about opening the country’s borders, I want to say that I am really extremely sorry when I am forced to acknowledge and tell our fellow citizens that they can’t return back to Albania for the time being. And this is for a simple, as well as painful reason, because if we are to open the country’s borders and allow everyone to return back home, we will then have not enough land to bury people and the situation could worsen to become even worse than Bergamo, or Iran. This is the only reason. There is no other reason in the world and I think that none of those being through this doubt about the goal of this decision and doubt about the fact that they would risk others by returning home. You would be safe by staying where you are right now, while you will certainly suffer just like everyone else. Of course, a war doesn’t bring joy and happiness, but suffering and pain. I don’t think any of you have read that there has ever been a war in the history of mankind to bring about happiness, but victims, uncountable wounds and unforgettable suffering. This is the case with this war. This is the third world war. I don’t know how to name it other than a world war when seeing NATO becoming a sort of a humanitarian organization, while the military arsenals of the whole world are staying in the military depots, because they are of little or no avail at all. This is certainly a war, because no other land enemy would have succeeded in sending everyone to lock down inside their homes in every country on the planet. This is the enemy that isolated everyone. This enemy forced all leaders around the world, from of the United States, the planet’s superpower, to the Prime Minister of a tiny country like ours, to speak about more effective defensive.
Another important issue is that of the small business leases or rent. All small businesses will pay no monthly lease until the day set as deadline by the government’s Normative Act, based on the abovementioned principle, while we are mulling plans to provide a state subsidy to every small business that has been shut down, the same as for individuals who have given a leased property that is the primary source of income for their families. However, we need a little bit more time and all of these will be included in the expanded economic package.
[Comment on social networks] Don’t succumb to melancholy, but make sure to provide solutions. What is going to happen with us, since we can’t go to work because of the stay-at-home orders?
Once again, I reiterate that wars happen to inflict damages, to plunge us into darkness and troubles nobody has ever imagined before, neither me, nor you, or anybody else. These are troubles we have never imagined. We will follow same dynamic about all those who have lost their jobs in private companies, because of this enemy offensive and we have taken a measure that will enter into force on Monday. We have made available a sovereign guarantee for the private companies that cannot pay their employees, so that the companies are not forced to lay off staff, or send employees home during the ongoing and unprecedented coronavirus crisis, and instead pay them a wartime salary. Some say, notably the opposition, claims this sovereign guarantee fund will not work. But this remains to be seen. We think that not only it will work, but the $100 million fund will not be adequate to cover all needs and we are ready to increase it.
In the meantime, we are identifying every individual who will be affected by this war and of course we will not leave them alone. But how will support them. We will announce the due amount based on the necessary calculations, but primarily making sure that the country is utterly devastated in two or three months time, as it happened back in ’97.
I have heard that what we have already pledged unfortunately has yet to be materialized. This is a lie, because the double economic assistance has been already allocated and it will support all families currently under the social welfare scheme.
The initial 10, 000 business applications for the so-called wartime salary will be approved on Monday. Once the applications approved, the payments will be transferred to the citizens’ bank accounts starting on Tuesday.
Pensioners will receive increased pension payment starting on April 21. What else has changed regarding the retired people except the fact that they should temporarily stay at home? Or perhaps you think that pensioners are going to eat a lot more over these days.
[Question via the social networks] What about the public administration? When public administration is going to start work, since there is a number of documents we need to obtain?
Aleksander, our priority is to protect your life and the life of the members of your families and this is not the right moment to obtain documents. The only thing you should do right now is to protect others from yourself and take care that you don’t turn into a biological bomb that would kill everyone you love and respect.
[Comment via social networks] You lobbied about the market, but the prices have increased.
If you would be able to bring a single example when the prices of the most sought commodities do not increase, then we will follow that example. However, food prices have risen much less than it would have been the case should we failed to act and hit speculation and abuse phenomena every day. This is a fact.
[Question on social networks] When do you plan to lift travel ban to Italy.
I am not going to name each country that have closed their borders, but I am going to reiterate borders, roads will open and the travel ban will be lifted once we reach to the conclusion that the enemy has withdrawn and will not come back again. Only then, the roads will open. We can lift the travel ban, but Italy is not going to open its borders.
[Question on social networks] I am an entrepreneur and I have 8 employees outside Tirana. I don’t know what to do.
For the moment, we are considering plans to ease the travel restrictions for those who use their cars to go to work. A decision will be made soon. But I repeat and I want to know it from you. If we are to remove the travel ban for all individuals who use their cars to go to work, should we then impose tougher penalties against those who take their cars to the roads for fun? I say that these people won’t be able to go back home again. Instead, they should end up exactly where those who commit crimes end up, because violating rules today is exactly as if you commit a crime, a murder, because you help an entire chain of infection to spread.
[Question on social networks] Why big business should apply for bank loans just to play their employees  and why the big business should be the one to pay when it is fighting completely on its own?
Do you think that the big business is fighting alone when it is granted access to benefit a government guaranteed sovereign loan to keep its human resources alive?! Nothing else but a guarantee instrument is offered to the business in any country around the world, including the United States of America.
[Comment on the social networks] This is something you should have thought about much earlier, because it was your inspectors who let them to work illegally.
Informality is the enemy’s ally today. When I insisted, I keep insisting and I will keep insisting on imposing tougher sanctions on those employing people illegally in the shadow and informal economy, from where we have removed and rescued, in other words we have registered almost 200,000 people, I did not actually think that a day like this would ever come, I didn’t think that a third world war was to erupt, but this is a great lesson we are learning and which I wish you and nobody else will forget, when the day comes for us to return to Parliament and when we will need to seriously tackle the issue of the employment in the shadow economy. On the other hand, this is not just a matter of inspectors; this is indeed a matter of everyone or many who think that by not being insured it would be easier, even thinking that those who register to pay the insurance contributions are stupid. True, we are talking about other countries, but other countries, during each month of the year, pay something separately and apply more taxes, and even they pay not only social and health insurance contributions, but also unemployment contributions so that they receive unemployment payment if they become jobless.[Question via social networks] I work in a bakery and I have been suspended from work.We are considering plans to prolong the time when people will be allowed to leave house. It is part of the eased measures, because we think people have developed greater awareness at this stage. After all, we are all part of this spirit of resistance. However, we should be overly cautious. We will prolong the hours allowed to leave home, but whoever violates rules will be imprisoned. There is no other way!

[Comment via social networks] The family lives off the rental income and has no other source of income. Those whose rental income from leasing a property is the only source of income will not be left alone. We will subsidize a part of the problem, which means that on one side, when the day when a rescheduling comes, they will receive in tranches what the tenant owes them, benefiting also support from the state. The size of this subsidy will be announced once when we prepare and unveil the extended economic plan, because we are first making all calculations, not financial ones, but for the beneficiaries and the figures. After all, it is all about calculations. If we were to face a war that we knew how long it would last, then we would have unveiled such a package by now. But this war may last three, four, or even seven months, because, taking notice of what I am informed, and not what you are informed – as I am trying to be consistently informed via the official resources – nobody knows how long it would last. The U.S. President initially said it may last two weeks, later noted it could last a month, but he is now suggesting it may last even six months, because even his experts are unable to provide him an accurate prediction. A war has started again about the face masks, whether the face masks are needed, or not. The World Health Organization itself said that face masks were not necessary, but they now say the masks are needed. It is not a situation where can move forward blindly and it is actually a very complicated chess game. It is a game where you make your moves and your rival makes his move, but this is an enemy you don’t see at all and follows no rules to which you have no other remedy, but to protect yourself.