“I have no reasons to preach and tell you why not to leave the country,” Prime Minister Edi Rama said in his remarks at a conversation with citizens in Korça and asked about the youth migration and factors that influence migration intentions of Albanian youth. “I think that it is primarily important for everyone to realize that we are no longer isolated in comrade Enver’s bunker, we no longer live in a secluded country where nobody could leave it, and we are not in a first and fresh phase with people leaving Albania, but this is the 30th or 31st year in terms of creating the opportunity for Albanians to leave the country and put themselves to the test in other countries. Throughout history, Albanians have always migrated, until the communist bunker was built and people were forcibly isolated inside it. They leave the country, they will keep doing so, and they have returned and will continue to do so. The migration and return trends always depend on historic trends that are broader and more general than those of the Albanians. Are Albanians only and is Albania alone facing such a phenomenon today. If this was to be the case, then we would have to engage in a completely different debate. This is actually not the case and if we are to look back, and I don’t mean the past seven years, because I would make this conversation difficult for myself and for you, but I mean the past 30 years. If we are to go back in time 30 years ago, the transformation Albania has gone through, although a series of negative changes have marred this transformation and I am not going to comment on that, but the transformation Albania has gone through in terms of the opportunities for the people it is actually one of the greatest transformations that have taken place in our continent. This is because Albania embarked on its transformation path in the ’90s, when the country had the lowest standards and it was in the most unfavourable position and underdevelopment unparalleled to other former communist states, but we are also today right at the heart of a continent where the world’s wealth is concentrated. This makes the difference between us and Germany, France, England, and Sweden even stronger and this makes the psychological gap even wider. Therefore, I really understand when a 20-year-old man from Pustec or from another remote village in Korca says: “Ok, I understand I understand all that you say, Mr. Prime Minister, that you did this and that, but I I am 20 years old and what should I wait for, how much I should wait and whom I should wait for so that I can live as my peers do in Germany? I understand him very well and I have no other answer for him, but the answer that this is his choice and I won’t judge him, let alone judge him negatively, when he says I am not going to wait even for another year, let alone 10 or 20 more years, because I will go abroad and try to start a new life abroad. It is then the comical side of this dramatic phase of the country, when you happen to hear some saying – I am not going to mention names – that they would put an end to this phenomenon. Just imagine if this was to be a matter to be solved by the political parties, it was a matter to be addressed by certain individuals, or if it was a matter of political parties’ programs, so that it depends on the political parties whether this demographic movement can or cannot take place. This is a typical phenomenon for the time we are living in and this is a phenomenon that has taken place in many countries that have already joined the European Union.”

The government head added: “We are talking about young people who leave the country and this is painful, but this is  it is a pain of this time and this is not an attempt to justify anything, but it is a matter of looking reality in the eye and realize that, if we want, – I repeat, – that those who are younger today will no longer be forced to make the question the boy from Lekas made today, we do the right thing and be aware that there is no magic wand, there is solutions in the blink of an eye. Albania today cannot offer to the boy from Lekas village what his father can offer him while working in Germany, no matter which government is in office. There are limits. You have to wait ten more years, because these are all internal processes. On the other hand, we should do a lot more for the young people. But what? When in opposition, I used to discuss a lot with Niko, who used to serve as Mayor of Korca back then and he opted to discuss about the future in the terms that he couldn’t calm down himself as he wished to make Korça that of the stories he had listened from his own grandparents, or the city you would see in the pictures dating back in the ‘30-s. It was just 10 or 12 years ago when you couldn’t take a picture in Korca fearing of what would crop up on the picture’s bacground. I am saying this in the sense that you can now take a picture with a beautiful background.”