Prime Minister Edi Rama’s speech at the reception for the diplomatic corps accredited to Albania:

Honourable ambassadors and guests!

Welcome to this traditional meeting, which, unlike the previous annual receptions, takes place right after the New Year, following an especially intense end of year.

Indeed, upon the return from seasonal holidays, you have found a new government, however you found an Albania exemplifying the same old tune, with the President of the Republic once again refusing to decree the appointment of a cabinet member, but given that this time it is about the new Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, in no way I would skip this fact at tonight’s meeting.

However, before talking about this and many more issues, as we still are in time in protocol terms, this is the moment to wish a happy and successful New Year for Your families and teams here and in Your countries!

I would like to extend tonight a special greeting to everyone attending for the first time this traditional reception, the new heads and representatives of the diplomatic missions accredited to Albania in the January-December 2018 period, namely the ambassadors of Turkey, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Qatar, Switzerland and Slovakia, and of course the new Head of the Delegation of the European Union, together with whom I would particularly like to wish the  Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) of the U.S., while waiting for this new year to bring the new U.S. Ambassador to Albania, despite the fact that Leyla has left not any void.

At the same time, I like to extend my welcome here in front of you and wish every success to the members who join our government team and to those who leave the cabinet, but, as a French saying randomly used 50 years ago has it, they join the body of reserves of the republic. We all together will add new dynamics to the governing process and undoubtedly we will add the country a more tangible progress in every area this year.

I invite you all honourable friends, diplomatic corps representatives to establish your contacts with the newly appointed cabinet members reinforcing the existing ones with their predecessors. We will need synergies in every dimension.

Synergies between us and you.

Dynamic, constructive and lax synergies starting from the region, rebuilding and bridging synergies in the European project, which, without enlargement, is a crippled process and without the Balkans is a disfigured union.

Synergies in the face of the crises, sadly turned miserably into an already global phenomenon, from which no country, no matter large, or small, can escape.

I would like to emphasize that an authentic synergy will be needed to strengthen the role of the Albanian factor in the region and a wider region, as a role that carries the mission of stability, dialogue and peace, not only to consolidate what has been already accomplished in this respect, but also to prevent any potential backwardness.

I also want to deliberately state right here that the that hegemonic ideas, which not accidentally float time after time over our heads like clouds in a certain space, or in another space, or right here in our space, anytime there is a clash of interests, are not creations by the Albanian thinking. To their authors, I want to remind in our Albanian language and in our Latin alphabet that attached to our holy territory of the Republic of Albania, we are proud will eternally remain committed to our great nation that stretches its ancestral limbs beyond today’s borders of Albania.

The characteristics of the present age, in their entirety may look grim, the storms of today both in domestic and foreign policy in many countries, at certain moments, are taking ever more unpredictable, destructive and irrational forms. However, Albania, a tiny country, but no longer young, strongly believes in the path of values ​​and principles of the society of nations and countries we feel part of, the path of stability, dialogue and peace where we want to have our voice, especially in a region where we intend to take even a greater role in the name of this strong faith as it pushes and inspires us on this path.

The interdependence and our connective synergies, with our two inalienable strategic allies in particular, the United States and the European Union, are not only for now, but in my view, for too long, the only antidote to the hegemonic temptations, nervous confrontations, verbal or armed threats in this area of ​​Europe where we live, but in general as well.

I am very delighted for gathering here tonight following an utmost and hard, but also successful attempt to assume the OSCE chairmanship. I believe that it is for the sake of truth I have to underline that Minister Bushati has played a special role in this process, just like in many other areas. Here in front of you, I want to thank and express him gratitude for the dignified service he has provided to the Republic of Albania.

He did his best while serving as the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs and, thanks to an already considerable experience, he will continue to be an added value to our government and our political family.

I sincerely regret that his successor, a young Albanian from Pristina, with conspicuous knowledge and exceptional intellectual modesty, things you will have the opportunity to see for yourselves, has embarked on his journey as future Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs in a quite uncommon way, which is not typical of the political and public environment.

Prejudices and political mudslinging of Albanian terrain but also the anger vented by ignorance have offered the most untrue public portrayal one could imagine, before he takes the floor as minister.

They have trampled over him, spelling out on three reasons;

First he is too young for the job, so he is irrelevant to their old world;

He is clean, so he has done nothing to be blamed for;

And because he is from Pristina, an Albanian from Kosovo cannot assume a high-ranking post, but as a Kosovar he would be fit for a cannon fodder by all those who face to face or on the sly have countered by means of verbal vandalism the Kosovo- Serbia dialogue.

But I picked Gent Caka, not because he is from Kosovo, neither because he is young, but because he stands out as a European Albanian, for his passionate desire for knowledge and our common homeland, a citizen of the Republic of Albania and has been working with me for so long, first as an advisor and later as Deputy Minister in charge of European integration.

He has never said anything that contradicts our foreign policy. Whoever says otherwise, it is either malicious or misleading, or both, or even worse.

He has never preached border changes in the Balkans and has not undertaken to intervene in a matter like that between Kosovo and Serbia, which primarily falls within the scope of the elected leadership of Kosovo and the Albanian people living in the state of Kosovo.

I know quite well we haven’t heard anything yet compared to what we are about to further listen in the future, but I want to make it clear to everyone, once and for all: Albania supports dialogue and encourages a final accord between Kosovo and Serbia, which will be accepted and guaranteed by the United States of America and the European Union. That’s it!

Everything else is the politicians’ short-sightedness and devilishness. I don’t really know how these two words short-sightedness and devilishness (fukarallëk, maskarallëk) are going to be translated into English, but the Turkish Ambassador, I believe, can help you with an alternative translation.

Further on, I would like to emphasize that we intend to enhance political and direct communication in the region intensively. Primary with the Albanians in the region. However, with special emphasis on Kosovo, but also all other countries, Albanians in Serbia, Albanians in Montenegro, Albanians in Macedonia. But, however, our goal is what I said and we will put our heart, mind, and soul into the inalienable path for us. We want a region to be a place where the future of our Albanian, Serb, Montenegrin, Macedonian, and Bosnian children is not like the yesterday, which it seems we still find it too hard to leave behind.

I want to point out two things, dear friends and diplomatic corps representatives.

First, we are well prepared and by spring we will open the border with Kosovo, but I wish that no one distorts the purpose and contents of this act by recycling it over and over again in the course of the national folklore remnants of the past. What we are going to do is very simple. we have taken the whole Schengen regime, translated from the beginning to the end and gone through a very detailed technical process between the two Interior Ministries, Albania and Kosovo to guarantee all security parameters and freedom of movement without sacrificing any guarantee standards we provide as a country benefiting from the visa liberalization regime.

Having said this, our goal is more than that. We want to do the same with Macedonia. I have discussed exactly the same thing with Prime Minister Zoran Zaev and we are ready to commence work with Macedonia to do exactly the same thing, a fluid border grounded on the Schengen model. We want to do the same thing with Montenegro as well and we would like to apply this in the whole European area of the Western Balkans where we lack B (union), but not E (Europe) and we have the right to move at least across our countries just like you until the day join together.

Second, I want to state it clearly; We and I personally are concerned over degradation of the CEFTA agreement. This degradation runs counter to anything we have envisioned and tried to achieve at the continued roundtables under the Berlin Process initiated by Chancellor Merkel and supported by many countries you represent.

But, on the other hand, allow me to say that despite the fact that the CEFTA agreement today is in a degraded state, we are unable to react in view of restoring to the previous situation, should there is no serious, positive and sustainable developments in the relations between Serbia and Kosovo and if Serbia lacks readiness to correct all the degrading aspects of the agreement, which preceded the imposition of the 100% tariff.

In trade terms, the imposition of the 100% tariff, from CEFTA’s point of view is unacceptable, but, I have stated and want to reiterate the fact that it is not a trade measure, but it comes as a reaction and a scream of a country left in unacceptable isolation by EU as a result of procrastinated visa liberalization although it has done everything to normalize the process with Serbia and has not seen the same deserved results in return.

Having said these two, we will do our utmost to facilitate, support, simplify the recently created burdens, which should serve, in my view, for all of you, all of your countries, to understand what yesterday seemed simply a fantasy, gloomy forecast that the Balkans past is a ghost that is easily return should the EU and the major European countries forget that it took a war with bombs and if Kosovo is left halfway, as it is the case today and this is sadly the truth.

On the other hand, I am hopeful that we can deepen regional partnerships through the trilateral. We have tremendously stimulating trilateral in the framework of cooperation between NATO countries, between Albania, Montenegro and Croatia. We want to move towards trilateral cooperation with Croatia and Kosovo, with Macedonia and Kosovo and beyond.

It is time to finalize a process that is not easy given the historical and political sensitivities with Greece.

Greece is a strategic and irreplaceable partner of Albania, but being a neighbouring country and being a Balkan country, we often find it rather not so difficult to choke on a spoon of the hot milk of the history. We have made significant progress, but the devil is in the details, as our Greek neighbours say, and we will do our utmost to resolve this detail so that we reach an agreement that will take our strategic partnership into a new level and finally sign the Strategic Partnership document.

Having said this, I want to reiterate that, just like it has always been from the very first day, it remains imperative to us to further deepen cooperation in this triangle of strategic partnership between Greece, Italy and Turkey. To us, Italy is the gateway to our entire journey towards the European future, and Turkey remains an inalienable and irreplaceable strategic partner, no matter which way the winds of the relations of our other friends with Turkey are blowing time and again. Turkey is our friend and is not affected by any wind.

Last, but not least, I want to emphasize that I haven’t forgotten, but I intentionally wanted to put emphasis at the end of this speech, we hope that this year will see a process that should have taken place last year. Together with European elections we hope to see the conditionality for the opening of accession negotiations with Albania come to an end, along with the internal problems of the EU member states.

This is certainly our major challenge.

Although we received an unconditional invitation from the European Commission and a boost to push ahead with the process thereafter, on the understanding that screening process will open, which amounts to ‘de facto” opening of negotiations, we have done and continue to do our homework.

We are well aware it is a never ending process. It is an indefinite process. These are not simply home works we have done and now it is over. New home works should be done each year, each month and each day. So we are well aware of this, but I also want to convey the message we are equally aware of the fact that several big countries possess every necessary tools to say things the way they want and have a change of heart as the need arises and being big countries and having greater power to communicate things what consequences this triggers in a country like ours, or in a country like Kosovo that has been pledged the visa liberalization and now are forgetting and have failed to keep their word, or in a country like Macedonia, which turned its name. I do not know whether any of you can imagine your country changes its name to remain in the EU and is still is in the same position like us. Which means that I very much hope that our great sources of inspiration, which are your countries, the European Union countries and especially those countries to be a source of impetus and positive energy to open negotiations and move on.

By thanking you all for your patience and expressing gratitude for the cooperation, support and readiness as the representatives of your countries in Albania, being convinced that these qualities in our relations will excel more this year, but also with the pleasure that – I guess this building is the last space you will attend a New Year’s cocktail – it’s with great pleasure that we offer you this feast, to wish you all the best for the new year!

I am very grateful for everything you have done and, in advance, for everything I am convinced you will do to help Albania and support the Albanians, who I have no doubt you love with all your heart.