Prime Minister Edi Rama is on a three-day visit to Munich, Germany, to attend the Security Conference 2024, the world’s leading forum for debating the most pressing challenges to international security.
MSC 2024 (Munich Security Conference) offers an unique opportunity for high-level debates on the world’s most pressing security challenges, bringing together more than 450 high-level decision makers from all over the world, including heads of state and government, ministers, and diverse voices from international organizations, civil society, and the private sector to engage in intense debate, discuss initiatives, proposals for solutions and exchange opinions and ideas.
Prime Minister Edi Rama today was invited to take part in discussion about the Western Balkans, current issues, the region’s common perspective and future of global security at a time of global challenges, together with the President of North Macedonia Stevo Pendarovski, President of Montenegro Jakov Milatović , and the US Senator Jeanne Shaheen.
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– Moderator: Prime Minister Rama, in case there is no progress in North Macedonia, how is that going to affect Albania’s European Integration process, because your destinies have been coupled for a long time. Would you be seeking to decouple and can you see or envisage that Albania opens the first cluster if there is no progress in North Macedonia?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: I hope that we are already decoupled from North Macedonia, because last time we were a couple, we were prevented from taking any other step due to some situation that had nothing to do with Albania, but it was connected with another country, namely Bulgaria. Since we have already held the intergovernmental conferences, we have completed our screening processes I don’t think we are coupled anymore. And the boiling part of this water combined with the brown mass to make the Turkish coffee and serve it then to you is that the situation in North Macedonia is first and foremost a result of the European Union that is incapable of ending the “country-napping” practice, which means “the practice of kidnapping the countries,” and allowing EU member states to use their seat in the European Union as a leverage against neighbors and this is the most anti-European thing one can imagine.
And then of course the implications are felt in these countries themselves, because this is the best fuel for nationalisms, this is the best fuel for nonsense and this is unfortunately a time in the world when nationalism and nonsense can succeed.
– Moderator: Do you foresee any problems with Greece on your path?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: No, we love Greece. And I didn’t come to Munich to have my Greek friends disturbed, because they follow me everywhere and they want to see my face, they want to hear my tone when I say something about Greece, but not. We love Greece! You stand no chance of taking us to conflict with Greece.
–Moderator: How do you see the security situation in the light of last year’s attacks? Do you worry? Has there been enough accountability as Senator Shaheen just brought the issue of accountability? Has there been enough accountability for those who have committed attacks?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Listen, I think there is something substantial to never forget, at least on our side, I mean on the side of the countries that have made their choice, because nobody has frankly forced us to choose where to position ourselves. Albanians in particular have not had the chance to choose for centuries long and the first day they could scream out what they really wanted, they said” “We want Albania like whole Europe.” This was the slogan.
So we have made our choice and to me it is never an excuse to not do our homework.
Yes, Serbia has messed it up, not just because of what happened in Banjska that day, but also because of what happened the day after, when President (Aleksandar) Vucic declared national mourning day for some killers. But, is this a reason to forget what the objectives are and where Kosovo should stand? No! And I would like to reiterate what I believe it is very simple thing, although it is easier said than done. Kosovo is not negotiating with Serbia. Kosovo is simply negotiating with the European Union and the United States, just like we are negotiating with the EU. What I mean? There is a plan, the so-called French-German plan, which is very clear. There are things to be done by one side and things that should be done by the other side.
Why Kosovo has to go even to Brussels, instead of doing its part by signing unilaterally one, two, three, four, five things, whatever they might be, and forward them to Mr. Lajcak and tell him: “We are ready. We did our part and we are ready to implement, start implementing,” and let them then deal with the other side.
It is not an excuse not to do things, when the other side is behaving badly, because in that context, it is not about Kosovo and Serbia, but it is about something already happening within a frame that involves both the European Union and the United States. And Serbia, with all the progress they have made, it is not an etalon country.
We have to stand together and as the US Secretary of State Blinken said: “We are together in good and bad times; we are together in good weather and in bad weather.” This is my approach to it and that’s why I would like to go back to what I already said earlier: “We have neighbours that are EU member states and they shouldn’t forget about the good neighborly relations when dealing with us, because they have one more obligation to properly represent what the EU stands for, even when it comes to the neighborly relations.
The same goes for us and the same goes for Kosovo and Serbia. Serbia has to decide. But Kosovo has nothing to decide, as it has been already decided. It is a country firmly part of this community together with the EU and the United States.
Moderator: You have been granted much longer time just because you are a good speaker and certainly entertaining…
Prime Minister Edi Rama: I was actually following you and you were all the time looking at me in a way as if you were saying “please go on.” This is what I could see. Sorry about that but it your eyes inviting me to continue speaking.
–Moderator: If you foresee enlargement in 2030 or earlier in 2028, how do you see it? Will it be an individual or a group thing? Will it focus on the East or it would remain an interest for the Western Balkans? I don’t want to be neither pessimistic nor optimistic about what we want. This is a question for everyone: What do we expect and what do we aim for?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: First of all, I think that no date should be in our mind, because I have been through a traumatic period of dates and wedding arrangements, with everything being set, but with the bride never showing up.
I would say that it is about changing the way how this convenient relation will develop, meaning that it would be something between “nothing or all” and the full membership for everyone, which would turn out to be a disaster if Europe would the one that is today, because they are 27 and they find it very difficult to decide and imagine then the six Balkan guys entering there and good luck with the consensus.
We should be all together when it comes to security. Why shouldn’t we take our seats in the same table and so on? Why not to let us be everywhere in the corridors, in the European Parliament, in the Committees, in the Council, not as full-fledged members with the right to vote, but as part of the same family. It is somehow like going to your fiancée’s house, where they allow you to get in as a family member, but you have to leave in the evening and return back the very next day. This is a bit how I see it and there are good signs that this is already changing. And I don’t know what would then happen with Ukraine, but what is happening now is sad enough.
Western Balkans are within the EU border. The European Union is the only reality in history of geography and in history of the maps with one external border and an internal border and we are within this internal border. So, you can’t get rid of us. We are there. So either you would use us to digest better or we would provoke indigestion and therefore the body would collapse.
-Moderator: You have to stop here, because it is such a good metaphor. Do not ruin it.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: What is happening with you is fantastic. You stop me, yet you don’t want me to stop.
