Speech Prime Minister Edi Rama delivered at the event “CONFIDENT TOWARDS EUROPE”, organized by the Ministry of European Integration on the occasion of Europe Day:
Just a few minutes ago I had a meeting with World War II veterans and took the opportunity to quote Robert Schumann. In his famous speech of May 9th 1950, which today is celebrated as Europe Day, he talked about Europe as a project that would unite all those who 5 years earlier were fighting a grueling battle. This visionary man, who was tortured in the Gestapo’s prisons and wounded in the French resistance barricades, only five years later made a plea for crossing the blood river between Germany and France and starting right from Germany and France the path of a great European Union. He is without the slightest doubt, an example that all generations must look up to in the path of coexistence in the European Union.
Today, I feel privileged to talk about Europe, not to war veterans, but to the next generations. I would like to bring to your attention a prophecy by Victor Hugo who, little more than a century ago said: “A day will come when war will seem […] absurd […] A day will come when the only fields of battle will be markets opening up to trade and minds opening up to ideas. A day will come when we shall see those two immense groups, the United States of America and the United States of Europe, stretching out their hands across the sea […] And to bring about that day will not take another 400 years, for we are living in a fast-moving age.”
If Victor Hugo thought he was living in a fast-moving age, just imagine how faster our age is moving. Europe Day is the best day to think about the speed of time. Speed of time that creates a totally different future from what we imagine it, when it is shaped by the pains of the past that are assimilated as a lesson, not as food. I think of Europe Day as day of remembrance, as far as remembrance is the courage to cooperate, when not longer than yesterday seemed impossible. We are very determined to carry forward the European project for Albania and we believe that Albania needs Europe, but Europe needs Albania as well. We believe that the Balkans need Europe, but Europe needs the Balkans as well. We believe that today the Balkans are testimony that, what happened yesterday with France and Germany and which seemed unlikely to happen in the Balkans, has already happened. It happened for the same reason it happened between France and Germany. It happened for Europe which became the impetus to cross the rivers of blood in the Balkans and establish peace, and made 2014 the first year in the history of the Balkans without any conflict. A hundred years after World War I the Balkans, where that war started, is now a region without any conflict. The need for Europe made everyone in the Balkans go beyond the inertia of the past and turn a new page. However, on the other hand, I believe that this story must be a story that we should write together. And, what the Balkans did in the name of Europe, Europe must do in the name of the Balkans.
In conclusion, not out of respect for formality, but for the sake of truth, I would like to extend my deepest appreciation to all representatives of Europe present today. I want to thank you for our cooperation. I want to thank you for your sense of responsibility in trying to support Albania in its integration process. I want to thank each and every one of you for your concrete support to Albania to achieve its first short-term objective that is getting the candidate status. I am deeply convinced that given the times we are living in, the more integrated Albania and the Balkans are, the safer the project of a united Europe will be.
Europe is the project of courage, and courage is what United Europe needs today more than anything else.
Thank you!
