Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at the ceremony for EBRD’s 25th anniversary:
Thank you Mr President for the invitation to have me part of this ceremony, and also for your willingness to be here and celebrate the anniversary of a very important cooperation between our country, the government and your bank.
I would like to start where you finished, with justice reform. I’m very proud that we succeeded, I am very proud that we have been engaged since the first day and, by the way, we have been the first political force in the country in these 25 years, to have the judicial reform as part of our program and that we made it one of our promises.
Many people thought that this was impossible because it was beyond our reach in terms of numbers available, but I was among those few who thought since the first moment that it was possible, because Albania has never been alone, and because the judicial reform, as it is now, a constitutional package integrated in the Constitution with a fairly large consensus, is the result of a very close cooperation with our friends and allies.
Of course there are many people who have their own version of history, I have mine, and in this version the consensus was a masterpiece of a very fortunate combination between the will of the Albanians who went absolutely beyond every party line to support this reform; the willingness of our allies who went beyond all expectations by investing their endeavour and their image, as well as the willingness of some wall breakers who made sure that certain reform was ensured even without consensus. Without these elements we would not have had 140 votes.
But what is more important is that by having 140 votes, we have already entered a totally new era of the Albanian history, because for the first time we have the instruments to judge those who have never been tried, and who have alienated the dignified mission of judges in an instrument that turns justice into something that you can buy and sell.
Obviously this is a new era also for all those who have invested or want to invest in Albania. Therefore, I was very happy when from many directions, from Britain, Germany, Turkey, investors expressed their willingness to see more closely the investment opportunities in Albania, precisely because they have received information that this judiciary reform, this extraordinary constitutional reform passed successfully.
On the other hand I am very happy that the President of the EBRD stressed our willingness to be a government of reforms, and we will continue to be a government of reforms until the last day in office because we are absolutely convinced that Albania has wasted too much time by postponing and delaying the big fight with her past and with the major challenges of our future. Therefore, our key word is modernization, and thus we will keep with modernization through the reformation of our systems, the reformation of our institutions and of our state. Part of this process is also the cooperation with the EBRD, which was has not been merely a money provider, but has been above all a knowledge provider. Today, we signed our newest program, which is first and foremost a ground-breaking instrument in support of the agricultural development, based on a very fruitful exchange of knowledge, thanks to the support of the EBRD in a quite productive learning process for us on how to spend this money better and in the most efficient way for the sake of development of agriculture, money that we are using in the old manner but without expecting a new type of results.
We are all familiar with the history of our cooperation, so I will not repeat what the President mentioned earlier. I just want to emphasize that we are highly committed as members and partners with EBRD, and will do everything we can to move further with this endeavour to create new instruments that will support alternatively the increase of our capacity as a country, as a business community, and also to open new spaces for foreign investors.
Thank you all! Once again, I wish the best to everyone of your team. I really hope you will keep going successfully in Tirana
