Prime Minister Rama, who is in London to take part in the annual Berlin Process Summit, was today a guest at the “Future Resilience Forum 2025,” the international forum on security and global policy.
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I’m pleased, very pleased in fact, to be joined by someone I’ve admired for several years actually. I’m not myself on X or Twitter, I can’t remember what it’s called anymore, but my colleague David follows you and reliably tells me that you’re hysterically funny.
So I thought after the seriousness of our last session, we’d start maybe a little bit light and then we’ll get to the serious. So you and I are Cancerians, born in July.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Yeah.
What do you think that means?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Depends when you are born, I’m born on the 4th of July.
Me in 14th
Prime Minister Edi Rama: I’m the second most important thing after the United States.
– Well I like to tell my French friends that I like sharing my birthday with them and their country.
Going back to the comments that my colleague David found so hilarious, you at one point had quite an interesting conversation and exchange with one of the politicians here in the UK, Nigel Farage. Are you still having that continued?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Yeah.
Would you like to update us on that?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: I’m in contact with him and I hope he will keep his promise to come to Albania and to see by himself how beautiful the country is and how great our people are, and how much we value hospitality and many other things. So he promised to come and I’m looking forward to welcoming him and having him as a guest in our country and hopefully then he will stop putting the Albanians in his speeches for their own reasons.
From your perspective, what do you think is going on in the UK with someone like Nigel Farage being able to make these comments? What’s your perception from your side?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Listen, if you want me to be funny, don’t ask me about the UK because it’s a very dramatic subject and there is nothing funny about it. I tend to believe that singling out Farage as the problem is practically escaping the roots of the problems and Farage is not the problem.
He is the mirror where people can see in a theatrical way some of the problems and for sure I don’t believe that he has the solutions, but by no doubt, the solution is not to show him as the scapegoat or as the main problem.
The solution might be to see the problems themselves as they are and to try and find out how to tackle them in a way that can re-engage the people with politics and can make the people believe again in this great country.
So you think the problem is actually bigger than migration as a debate? It’s more about a democracy challenge?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: First of all, I believe that it’s wrong to characterize migration as the problem. Migration is not the problem, migration is part of the solution, I believe and of course then it’s important to make the distinction between what is illegal, irregular, harmful and what is beneficial.
I was in this city some time ago after someone named Suella Braberman singled out the Albanian community in the wrongest way possible and when I arrived I was graciously accompanied by the people that usually are engaged to accompany the prime ministers or the presidents for security reasons and we arrived in our hotel and there is a guy coming to me and speaking to me in Albanian and the guard approaches because he thought that maybe it was something dangerous and I said no, no, don’t worry, he’s a fellow Albanian.
And then when we got out of the hotel in the morning I heard my name shouted from up and I looked up and I see a few Albanians in the scaffolds working in repairing or building a building nearby. And then we went to the parliament and the guard that was there was Albanian. So my question came immediately, so what would happen? Who would do these jobs if the Albanians would not be available or not just the Albanians but other migrants? And the demographics of course are damning for Britain and for the old Europe.
So for sure migration is not the problem, migration is part of the solution and playing with migration in the way that is being played is very dangerous because it’s very disruptive for the values and the principles that have made the democratic Europe and Britain itself great places to coexist because it turns the issue in a cultural war and then it goes deeper and deeper by fueling dissent and frustrations that can blow up the whole society in a moment in time.
You mentioned the term old Europe and of course our strapline here is New World Order, New World Thinking. I mean what do you think, and it’s a big question so I apologize but I’m sure you can handle it, what do you think is actually happening to Europe? What is the trajectory from where it was, where is it going?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: I believe that if one wants to understand a bit better what’s happening to Europe should open the ears and listen to others outside Europe. Listen to the big brains and to the great minds of Asia, of the global south in general, of the Arab countries and every one of them looks at Europe like an old, tired giant that is not able anymore to wake up and to realize that the world has changed.
There is, for example, just one simple fact that less than 40 years ago Europe’s GDP was 10 times bigger than China’s. Today they are equal and in less than 20 years China will have the double of the whole economy of Europe and let alone the rest of the world. So Europe is in a crossroad, a very critical moment because it has to make its mind. About accomplishing the project of the founding fathers, which by no doubt is the most amazing project the political human has created, or go towards more disasters in the, and following the path of Brexit, which was the most incredible hierarchy one could ever imagine to see on live TV.
You mentioned China, and it’s an interesting subject because some of our panels have brought out, particularly in the world of critical minerals, for example, their dominance in that market. And we were speaking before you to the Syrian economy minister, and he was explaining how China is helping with infrastructure and so forth. And China really in the world in a way that I think perhaps Europe has perhaps stood back. Is that your perception? Would you agree with that? I was just saying that China seems to be very quick to be in the world, investing in Africa, now investing in Syria. Is it your perception that they are quicker at doing that than Europe might be?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Well, I think there is one characteristic in China’s stance on the world that we should keep in mind, that China is not interested in universalising its own way of being, its own values, its own beliefs.
They believe that they belong to a superior civilisation that is not even worth spending energy to spread. While in the meantime, wherever possible, China wants to make business. And this is a very special characteristic of a big power that does not resemble to anything like that we have been used to live with in our lifetime, being the Western big powers, being the Eastern, namely Soviet Union and the Communist bloc, who were all obsessed about spreading their way of living, spreading their beliefs and imposing their values. So in that respect, China has this different approach.
And on the other hand, there is something absolutely relevant that Jacques Attali, by the way, was mentioning yesterday, not longer than yesterday, that while China is speaking about the fifth five-year plan in a row, meaning 25 years from now, France, quoting Jacques Attali, has not a plan for the next week. So it’s quite a big, big difference that then reflects the daily life of the grip that China has on the world, and Europe has on the world, and the others have on the world.
-And do you think European leaders have got space to have that type of long-term thinking that China doesn’t, obviously, based on the fact that they have a different political system from?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: No, you know, European leaders have to think about so many elections. And in the same time, I believe that being under the very, very big and mostly destructive pressure of the social media, the party politics, the politics in general in the democratic part of the world has become less and less, less and less respected and less and less followed by the people. And this is, this fuels more and more destructive attitudes and destructive ideas about the world, the world we live in, in this part, in this part of the whole world.
While I believe in my very, very humble way that what people in this country or in the developed countries of Europe are looking for is the result of the fact that they have lost more and more the sense of what they already have, which is still very precious and very, very important. And the idea that by looking for something different, they can lose what they have is terrifying in my view. So it’s not an easy moment.
My sense is that it will get worse before it gets better. And the lack of, the lack of clearity and of clear ideas about how to deal with this new world and what to do with this beautiful project that is not accomplished, named European Union, is causing more and more, more and more confusion and more and more damage.
-And do you think it’s been a lack of leadership in terms of the personalities we’ve had, or is it a lack of leadership in terms of allowing, and I’m talking about leaders now, allowing themselves to be buffeted by, you know, bad headlines or, you know, social media, as you said?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Listen, let’s take one example that for me is very, very revealing in a way. The Russian aggression in Ukraine. So for several years during the previous American administration, Europe outsourced practically its own foreign policy and put itself in an autopilot following the United States in a view of the conflict and in an approach that was quite maximalistic and with all the, of course, with all the moral ground necessary. And now, the situation has dramatically changed. And what, for example, was considered to be a very unacceptable word, ceasefire, when Viktor Orban was insisting on that and was treated like a pariah, suddenly became the magic word when Donald Trump mentioned it. And all the European Union leaders embraced it and started to look for a ceasefire. But apparently. Too late. And what makes me absolutely confused is the fact that until today Europe has not its own peace plan.
So for sure it’s legitimate, it’s absolutely legitimate to support Ukraine, to fully support the territorial integrity, to fully oppose the taking by force of a piece of land from another country.
But while we are thinking about rearming and about supporting Ukraine with weapons, it sounds or it looks quite weird that we don’t have a strategy of peace, we don’t have a plan.
So absolute victory is one of the options, but it can’t be the only option. And in the meantime, we have to have a plan how what peace looks like. And the lack of it makes us completely dependent on whatever Washington will do in this respect, which is obviously very different from what it was before, and which is obviously something that has a totally different take on what’s going on and how it should go on.
So I see this as a very stunning example of Europe’s lack of a solid autonomous position vis-à-vis issues of great importance and issues of great strategic weight.
Can I ask, have you met Vladimir Putin?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: No, thank you.
We are a very special case, I would say, because Albania is the only country in the whole European continent where no leader from the Kremlin and no high profile figure from Moscow landed since 1960. And since 1960, no one from our side landed to Moscow to visit Kremlin or to do whatever. So this is related to our history. We had a very particular history, very different from the other communist countries of the Soviet bloc, because we considered all of them traitors, degraded crooks that didn’t deserve our company. And we believed and we fought as the only lighthouse of communism in Europe. So when the Soviets abandoned Stalin, we continued following Stalin. So Stalin was in our main boulevard, much taller than me in bronze, until 1990.
And this has created this attitude of total lack of confidence and total lack of appetite about Russia or whatever. So we love Dostoevsky, we love everything the Russian culture has given to us, but we don’t like Putin, and we don’t like the actual Russia, and we don’t have anything to do and we don’t miss them.
So you don’t have those brush buys that we have in government at various multilateral gatherings?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: No, no, we are immune to that. We don’t have. We have never been tempted by Russian oligarchs, by Russian money, by Russian whatever. For us, the Russian literature and the Russian great music is more than enough.
So going back to, and also we had a session before talking about mediation, and going back to your comment around Europe not knowing how to, I guess, prepare for peace. Does Putin want peace? And if so, what are those questions?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: There is a story, I don’t know how much familiar you are, there is a real true story about the Russian anthem. The Russian anthem was composed long ago, and after the change in the politics in Moscow, when they took some distance from Stalin, Khruschev asked the author of the anthem, the poet, to change the text. And he changed the text. And then later on, when Russia became independent from the Soviet Union, or when the former Soviet Union countries became independent from Russia, Yeltsin called the author and said we should change the text. And the author, much older than in his original version when he wrote the first version of the anthem, he changed the text. And then Putin asked the fourth version of the anthem, but the music never changed.
So this is to just answer your question that in Kremlin the music never changes, the text maybe.
Okay, well, to take that to a different level, and talking again about the future of Europe, does that mean that we might see, talking about 25 years hence, could we see a change in borders in Europe?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Listen, I don’t believe that in any shape or form, not only Europe, but even other important countries in this world, China for example, will accept change of borders, because they are all underlining very clearly that the territorial integrity of Ukraine should be untouchable.
But on the other hand, there are different forms of settlements that can open the path to peace in the form of a frozen conflict without accepting any change of the borders. And I believe that this is the very right approach, because if we accept the change of the borders by force, then we accept that everything we have built for so many decades is gone, and then everything is open up for grabs based on force.
But what do you think he’d be willing to accept?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Who? Putin. Well, I didn’t meet him, as I told you, and we haven’t talked lately about what he’s willing to accept. It’s very clear that Russia, and he’s very, he has been very well in somehow riding this horse of the Russian grandeur and also fear from being, from being surrounded, and so he has played very heavily and successfully with his public opinion so far, the card of not allowing NATO to come closer to Russia’s borders.
But beyond that, I think that the damage he’s causing to Russia in the mid and long term is huge, and the real moment of reconnecting with the reality and of counting all the wounds for Russia will come when the war will be over.
-And I’d like to pick up your point about how China invests and is investing in two ways.
My first question on that, is President Trump right in that sense to look at having deals on critical minerals by way of using investment to try and, I suppose, find a compromise?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Now, I am the tallest among all the leaders so far, but I’m very aware that my country is the smallest, so I don’t believe that based on my height I can give opinions about people, about policies of countries that are so much bigger than my country.
So, Albania is a small country with a tall leader for the moment, but it doesn’t mean that I should get involved in giving, you know, opinions about such important subjects.
So to ask me, is Trump right, what do you want from me? What do you want from me? What possible answer else than Trump is always right I can give to you?
-Let me frame it differently in that case.
Do you think that we’re moving into a world where trade is used as a solution to, well, I guess, wars? And also, is it now trade used as a substitute for aid?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Listen, I remember more and more something very, very smart and beautiful Bill Clinton once said. He said multilateralism is in our best interests. And we have to do everything to strengthen multilateralism today, that we are the first country. Because multilateralism will help us a lot when we’re the second country.
So, I believe very much that multilateralism is not going to go away, it’s passing a very difficult moment, but it’s a moment when for sure the network of institutions that represent the aim of the world for multilateralism is under question. And this being under question will help to reinvent this network and to reinvent these institutions and to bring multilateralism in another level. It’s very obvious that multilateralism has been very beneficial in many ways, but in the same time it’s very obvious that when Trump, for example, attacks institutions that represent what multilateralism was so far, he has a point.
So the answer of all the questions that we are facing, like the questions you are making to me, has to be found in a reinvented multilateralism, in a reinvented world order, in a reinvented architecture of security. There are many things and many presences in our lives that we have taken for granted, that we have believed will be there forever.
And somehow, let’s face it, living in this part of the world with all the great things that came after we had the longest period without war has made us Europeans very self-referential, has made us less hungry for new successes, and practically has made us lose touch with the reality of the world.
I had the honor to be close to me with a gentleman from Syria, minister of the new Syrian government, thanks to you, that are able to connect people that otherwise would never see each other in this life. And we were talking and I was telling him that it was very striking for me, and we had a big debate in the Munich Security Conference this year. After the French and the German foreign minister visited Syria in the beginning of this year, and they said literally, we are ready to be your friends if you will comply with our values.
So what does it mean? So how much possible is for any of us to knock at the neighbour’s door and say, my family is ready to be a good neighbor with your family if you believe in the same things we believe and if we live like we live. So you are practically investing in a neighbor that will be a problem.
So in that sense, I think there is a lot to rethink. And let me be completely incorrect politically. I have to meet your prime minister tomorrow, by the way. You won’t tell him. Saying that in Albania, we have a lot of dreams, a lot of ambition, a lot of drive, a lot of passion to transform our country and to make it a member of the European Union, hopefully to fill the place Britain left empty. But we don’t have the bless you and some big other democracies have to have the most incredible universities, to have the most incredible thinkers, and to have such an incredible capacity to think about the future that I’m amazed that it is not used by the governments.
You don’t need to invent the will. Sometimes in Albania, we need to invent the will even. But here, you just have to open up and say, okay, give me some clues, give me some ideas, tell me how I should better serve this country, and you’ll have all sorts of ideas, all sorts of great energies coming in and helping you and making you become relevant in the eyes of these people.
So I’m sure that if you ask the top 50 universities of Europe to propose a peace plan, to propose how a different Europe can look like, to propose how Britain can get out of this gloom and doom moment, you’ll have it.
You’ll have enough versions to make your choices. It can’t be just some people in some offices having their own, for sure, capacity and having, for sure, their own experience.
Still, there are so many incredible capacities out there in every corner of this city that when you think that they are living in their own spaces without having access and the possibility to be the real influencers, it looks strange to me.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m completely wrong, but I have this feeling always, more and more.
On the subject of multilateralism, which we’ll get into later today, actually, we have a panel looking at what’s happening in Kazakhstan and Kazakhstan’s role in the world and in the international community, and it’s been moderated by your colleague, who’s also Albanian. And I deliberately put those two countries together because I’m interested in what multilateralism looks like, who’s part of it, and why.
Do you have any idea?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Listen, for example, what is happening as we speak in our part of the world, let’s say, there is this Coalition of the Willing that has been put together involving a number of countries within the European Union and NATO that are there, including us, to do their best to support Ukraine. So I think that you can say whatever about this format, but I think that it’s a moment of transition of multilateralism, and we’ll see more and more of this kind of coalitions. And we’ll see even coalitions that will trespass the actual frames, like, for example, this one, where the main frame is NATO and EU, but where there is also Japan, Australia, if I’m not wrong.
So there will be more and more coalitions like that for different reasons and different objectives. In the meantime, a new network of institutions and a new architecture of security will pop up.
The question that I don’t know at all the answer is with what price this new multilateralism and this new architecture of security will be in place. I wish, as everyone wishes, not the high price of, God forbid, World War III. But nothing is excluded at this point. There is so much blindness, there is so much fragmentation, and there is so much provocation and so much hate in this world that nothing is excluded.
Tell us a little bit about your vision for Albania.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Listen, every time I have the chance to meet Volodymyr Zelensky and he says to me, how are you? How are things going? I say, when I see you, I am the happiest person in the world, and my country is paradise, because there are no sirens in the night and there is no bombing.
So it’s all relative. And, of course, we are made in a way that we tend to forget the bad and we never have enough good. But at the end, I think Albania is in a good place. We are now in a high acceleration of our path towards membership. It’s a moment in Europe that, at least in this regard, there is a very, very strong change, that the geopolitical importance of the Western Balkans is not just in words, but it’s also in action.
Now they realize that they have to do everything to unify the Western Balkans with the European Union. Now they realize that the European Union is the only reality in the history of maps that has two borders, one outside border and one inside border, and within this inside border is us, the Western Balkans.
And if things are going to be as they are today, I’m very optimistic that we’ll be very soon, and by soon I mean within this decade, members of the European Union.
If things change and if Europe goes back to its comfort zone, then this can change. But for the moment, I’m very optimistic. And the vision of Albania is determined a lot by our history. We have never had the chance to have a moment in time when we lived based on our choice.
We were always imposed other forces upon us. 500 years of Ottoman Empire. Then we became independent, and then we had some chaos. Then we had a self-made monarchy. Our king was a guy that had no royal blood, but had no enough patience with democracy as well. So he thought that it was better to be a king, and by acclamation he became a king. But then we had the occupation from Italy.
Then we had Soviet Empire. And now is the moment we live by our choice. We want to be part of the European Union. Because the European Union is very much… The same as it was for the founding fathers, you know, an area of peace and of security. So, for us, Albania-European Union is like a religion.
It’s 92% of people want Albania to be in the European Union. And it’s incredible because we have a so polarized politics that it’s difficult to have the same idea even about what time is it. But when it comes to the European Union, there is no doubt, everyone want to be part of the European Union. And not because we are naive, I guess, but because we have still a fresh memory of how it looks like out of the European Union. So, I believe that the Brits are starting to realize how it feels to be out, but they are still in a kind of denial. But when they realize completely, then I hope they will be forced to come back and reform the European Union.
So, maybe you can persuade them.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Well, I think that the European Union is the most beautiful project that has been invented by humans when it comes to politics. But the big interrogatory question is, interrogatory mark is how much will be the capacity to accomplish the project, to create the United States of Europe.
Of course, by keeping the countries in their own space, but by having a much stronger architecture of living together.
You said earlier, and we’ll finish up soon and I’ll release you from this pain.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: No, it’s painful to talk about Britain. It’s not the interview
I won’t take it personally then. You spoke earlier about knocking on neighbors’ doors and saying you must take our values. One of the criticisms of the European Union is that it does try to force values that it possesses onto others.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: No, there is a difference. Because when it comes to us, this is a choice. So, it’s our free choice. Nobody has obliged us to be part of the European Union. We want to be part of the European Union exactly because we want to have the freedom, to have the human rights, to have the rule of law, to have all that is embedded in the European Union self-existence.
On the other hand, I believe that the European Union is a big bless for a country like us or for the Western Balkan countries, which are countries with not a very strong and very long tradition of institutions.
So, the European Union is the biggest and the most incredible source of know-how in terms of how to build institutions, how to build independent judiciary, how to build the check and balances and all this.
And this is what makes our future much more secure than of other countries that didn’t have the chance to have the European Union close by. Look at Iraq, look at Afghanistan. They had their moment of thinking that their future was freedom and democracy and human rights and independent judiciary and all this. But it didn’t last long because they didn’t have the European Union. They didn’t have the future designed as a future in that family.
So, for us, this is a big bless. And we are working very hard to comply, not because we want to please Brussels or Paris or Berlin or whomever, but because the more we comply with what it means to be an EU state, the better it is for us, for our citizens, for our people.
So, in that regard, whoever wants to be part of the European Union, of course, cannot blame the European Union for lecturing. But when the European Union gets out of its own realm and goes to Syria or goes to China or goes to I don’t know where, cannot go to lecture there. We live in a different time. And one of the things that are very tangible is that the rest of the world is fed up with the West lecturing, with the West telling how to live, what is good, what is bad, with a double standard and with all the bullshit that they had to listen and to live with for so many years.
Now they are grown-ups in this world, so it’s not anymore a world where there is one grown-up, the West, and the others are just immature or weak or, you know, it’s different. There are many and will be many more grown-ups in the world, so we have to find out a new way to coexist and to live and let live. It’s not for us to fix the way of living of others, I believe. And the faster we will understand this, the better it will be for us.
Otherwise, we’ll be in a very bad place.
Okay, well, Prime Minister, thank you so much for joining the forum today.
And also thank you to your beautiful wife for some of her words last night at dinner. For those who didn’t make dinner last night, Madame Linda Rama gave a fantastic speech.
Which included rucksacks, I remember, which I hope she gives in public at some point soon.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: I have to make a confession at the end, because in your program I was supposed to have a speech and then have this.
And I asked you not to make the speech exactly because I didn’t want to feel the pain of the contrast with my wife’s speech last night.
I think that’s fair.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: So I just wanted to avoid the comparison that would be very painful for me, because yes, her speech was amazing. And the backpack is something that I will use, but not in her presence.
Because I can steal the copyright from her when she’s not present.
Otherwise, it’s not possible. Okay, well, we won’t tell her. And as every man knows here, wives are great in protecting copyrights. And sometimes even when it’s your copyright, you have to accept that it came to your mind when you were sleeping with your wife.
It’s been a pleasure.
Thank you very much.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Thank you!
