Prime Minister Edi Rama addressed the gathered representatives of the Diplomatic Corps accredited in the country:

Your Excellences and dear friends,

We have gathered here tonight for this annual evening to break bread together, while a year filled with both challenges and opportunities ends and another year is coming soon.  Always on this occasion, I feel somehow sad to see the absence of familiar faces, good friends of this country who had to sail to other destinations. I know they all miss Albania and the never boring time they had here.

I send them my heartfelt wishes and ask that when possible, if possible, you let them know they have our enduring respect and gratitude. Meanwhile, I warmly welcome the newcomers to this table and I am confident they already feel at home, no need to encourage them further.  As we approach a new electoral year, I am certain that questions about the upcoming general elections will soon find their way into your memos and papers. I believe I have a pretty good idea of who will emerge victorious, but besides jokes, I can assure you that regardless of which political side the Albanian people will cast their vote for, they will all decide to stick with the values and the principles of the Euro-Atlantic community, to push for achieving the historical goal of becoming a good, proud member of the united European family, to support individual freedom, the rule of law and democracy.   These are non-negotiable commitments that transcend age, gender, religion, region or political affiliation among Albanians.

Albania has no plan B, only one unwavering and undisputable plan to join the European Union. And within this decade, we will give it everything we have to make that happen. It goes without saying, though, that we want to be friends, good and loyal friends, to all the others around this table who leave work and prosper beyond the boundaries of democratic Europe, like the brotherly Gulf countries, for example, whose political system is different from ours, but with whom our bond is strong and I hope and pray will become even stronger.

I wish the chair of the Russian Federation Ambassador were not empty tonight, but his absence was not our choice. It was the grave choice of his country to break the ranks of peace seekers with an unprovoked and unjustified military assault on Ukraine. This tragic act on the doorstep of democratic Europe has inflicted untold sufferings, countless lives lost and widespread destruction.

Ukraine and its brave people command our admiration, our solidarity and our unwavering support. May the coming year deliver peace, a just peace, for Ukraine and its people.

I also fervently hope the new year will bring peace between Israel and Palestine, ending the endless suffering of the people of Gaza and equally the harrowing ordeal of Israeli hostages still imprisoned in the darkness of Hamas’ medieval dungeons. Albania is a staunch believer in the two-state solution. But let me be clear, no enduring resolution is possible with Hamas in the picture. Expecting peace under their influence would be as naive as attempting to rebuild Europe post-World War II alongside SS battalions.

We cherish our strong alliance and friendship with the United States. I wish that the new year, coming after the longest and maybe the most fought campaign in its remarkable history of war, democratic battles, and with a new President in the White House, will bring new opportunities to strengthen further our bond.

This has been a landmark year for Albania. Looking back, I recall my first meeting with the predecessors of your predecessors, a decade ago. At that time, our primary goal was simply to secure EU candidate status and start repairing Albania’s tarnished international reputation.

Today, the contrast is staggering. It feels like two entirely different worlds I lived in. It has been tough beyond words, but it has been worth fighting for all we made happen during these years. We wish that the new year will lead us to fly again with no delay for the opening of other clusters, keeping pace with a very ambitious goal we have set together with the EU Commission to close our negotiations at the end of 2027. I know pretty well that nobody will make it easy for us. Every inch forward will demand ever greater effort, but I want you all to know that we are looking just for that, with no illusions and no regrets.

Albania’s place in Europe is ours to claim, not yours to grant. It is our duty, and ours alone, to light Albania’s yellow star in the Union’s blue sky. This lesson learned the hard way is one we value deeply, especially thanks to some EU capitals that doubted what we were made of. For you have all heard the expression, an ambassador is an honest person who has to lie for the sake of his country. I do remember the sadness of some of your predecessors, who had to constantly spin the vetoes or delays imposed on us after the Commission’s recommendations to start accession talks with Albania. It wasn’t easy to put it mildly, but it was an incredibly useful learning curve, and also an infuriating source of motivation to prove their capitals wrong. I’m not sure we would have grown up to the final task as much as we did if it didn’t go that way. So you understand that my thanks above were sincere, and I mean it, as it couldn’t be sincerer, the special friendship that was built exactly through that frustrating way between me and the actual NATO Secretary General, a man of liberal bluntness, Dutch ruthlessness, and long Prime Minister-ness, that phase is over, but our struggles to get into the EU are far from over.

Nevertheless, Silvio and all his colleagues from those special capitals, including the truly remarkable and beautiful Konstantina, no longer have to spin anything to make it easier for us to hear the tough parts of this journey. We get them, and we accept them as challenges to do more and to do better. So bottom line here in Albania, you are the luckiest ambassadors on earth, as the new tenant of the White House would say, because you have no need to bother to lie for the sake of your capitals.

Your Excellences, let me extend here tonight a special wish for a great new year to all your colleagues from the Western Balkans and let me express here my conviction that the fate of this neighborhood in these times is in our hands as never before. We should be very aware that the opportunities of today are not a given, and we should work all together to not let them fade away, but to make the very best out of them.

Yes, for sure we don’t agree on everything, and this is normal. The contrary could even be worrisome in a region where, until not long ago, we did not even sit together once. Not for years, but I dare to say for centuries. This is our moment and it is our responsibility to not ruin it, but to build upon it by using every space and every chance to get our markets larger and our people closer.

Albania will continue to work relentlessly for regional integration, promoting peace and cooperating through dialogue with everyone. A famous master of politics and diplomacy, well known to all of you, Cardinal Richelieu, once said that diplomacy is a science that has never ceased to be an art. As an artist, I would say that the boundaries between great and mediocre art are made by very subtle differences, often very small ones.

From the Cardinal’s words, I emphasize the need to act with greatness when it comes to the small details, which in the end can make the big difference between the good, the bad and the ugly. In our historically tricky regional relations and can bring us forward or backward in the blink of an eye.

And I want to address you now as dear friends of Albania, to whom I am delivering this annual address, in the presence of my wife and of my fellow cabinet members. There are all sorts of things said in town about my government, but although I am much more self-critical than I look, and I know this is not very difficult, I am also proud of the work I have done with all these folks here.

This year has exceeded the expectations of its beginning, and we can say that Albania has not only entered lately the group stages of the Tourism World League, but it is there to stay and advance further. The new year will begin with the lowest public debt since we took office, and the highest projection of revenues.

Our currency has never been stronger, inflation is at normal levels, and the largest volume ever of private investments, both domestic and foreign, is ready to flow into the country’s economy or into the longest pipeline ever. The average salary in the public sector is close to the ceiling of 1,000 euros, and the salary gap between the public and the private sector is closing faster than predicted. Meanwhile, for the first time in our country’s democratic history, unemployment is on the verge of becoming a single-digit figure, and in the new year Albania will host the European Political Community, an incredible big international event that speaks volumes about Albania’s restored reputation on the international stage.

I have many more things to say about the year we are leaving behind, and you all know I’m sure that I’m the best at making speeches painfully long. Our role as a responsible member of the UN Security Council, our part in the UN Human Rights Council, our joint forces on different fronts, our many bilateral agreements, and then again our further progress in the fight against corruption and organized crime, and more.

But don’t worry, I can sum it all up shortly with a single word – commitment. Absolute commitment towards our nation, our people, our friends, and our partners. Let me conclude with a particular saying in town that goes, he wins because his opposition is weak. Well, let me tell you that this is a half-truth, which is the biggest lie, because as a man, I was blessed when Linda agreed to marry me.

As an unintended consequence of this blessing, I happened to become Prime Minister with her on my side, meaning with the toughest opposition. At home, no shouting and no smears and slanders, which at the end of the day are easy to deal with, but difficult questions and hard arguments to counter, late at night, or very early in the morning.  So if there is a main reason for my winnings, it is that I am not only well-trained, but constantly trained by the toughest and the best-prepared opposition.

Therefore, let me thank here tonight also my fiercest opposition present here, and let me thank you all wholeheartedly, also on her behalf, for being here with us in this annual pleasant evening.

Thank you, and if I may take the glass, I want to make a toast first and foremost to your families, to your children, to your parents and in-laws, that as you know, and as I know too, are the ones who pay the highest price for all your work away from home, although very often, I understood, they like to be in Albania even more than at home, and for sure they will hate you when you will oblige them to go somewhere else. But this is for years to come, for the moment you are all here in Albania with them, and you can also host them who are not living with you.

So God bless them all, and may your families be in the best shape, and may you, thanks to their support, shine, and why not, help us to do better.

Thank you very much.

Cheers, and Happy New Year.