Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at Parliament’s plenary session: 

 

Getting ready for this Parliament’s session represented an opportunity to once again look at the panorama the ongoing fundamental transformation of the State Police and the country’s security panorama as a whole.

Today Albania is indisputably a country a lot safer than it used to be five years ago, although this is regularly and continuously being questioned at every media club and is incessantly targeted by continuously reporting every minor and slightest accident happening in the Republic of Albania that do not make a story newsworthy. “The roof tile falls on old woman’s head. The old woman suffers non-life threatening injuries.” This is news story reported in national TV channels; or “van ran off road as driver was drunk, no wounded reported.”

There is a series of such episodes that fill the daily vacuum in “a boiling cauldron reaching its boiling point by reporting babale, Shijak’s Niçe, and their inseparable friend Ervin Salianji.”

However, what is worth again underlining is that all those who have and continue to consider the people a fool have paid and will continue to pay the cost of this vilification. A vilification stemming from their lack of vision, their lack of ideas all those elements that give a handful of people the form and content of an organized group around a certain goal.

I am very pleased that progress has not been grounded to a halt and we have not become complacent about what we have accomplished, but instead we are confirming that our accomplishments are just an impetus to move forward.

In first two months of this year alone, some 60 money laundry cases have been discovered and an amount of EUR 8.2 million has been sequestered. In 2013, the entire value of frozen proceeds of crime was estimated EUR 1 million. In total, the value of confiscated criminal assets over past five years is a large multiple of the sequestered value during the eight years of the previous government of those who can no longer govern even their own selves. To be more precise this value is more than six times higher.

Of course, we should not forget that when we were elected to serve our first term in office, crime and criminality were the key word of every concern we have come across all over Albania, prior and during the then electoral campaign. This is best true, because during the campaign for our second term in office, not only the criminality was no longer the matter of primary public concern, but the State Police was the most trusted institution in the country, not based on our opinion, but on the annual survey conducted by the European Union. This institution remains as such, but the proposed amendments at today’s session reaffirm once again that we endeavour to improve and we are not satisfied with what has been achieved, as we are totally aware that what remains to be done is much more than what has been already done.

The offence rate against the person, the sort of crime that had become a main cause of distress for everyone all over Albania’s territory, either in the urban centres or countryside, when we took over the government, last year fell to a historic low in the 29 years of State Police statistics, or half of the premeditated murder rate that prevailed at the time when those who, to their own disgrace, sprayed black ink on the Ministry of Interior walls today, served in the government and in the Ministry of Interior.

The hurled black ink to film and export it as they can’t export the images of a non-impressive crowd of local government employees and workers from the Municipalities of Shkodra, Lezha, Kamza, Vora, Mallakastra and Lazarat, who gather here to sing the national anthem after wandering about the streets, but a more attractive production was needed to show a blackening and blackened Albania. Of course, this is a production that will immediately absorbed by the international media market and the local trash media alike. The foreign media is not to be blamed indeed as they know very little about Albania, while they need to feed their public with sensational stories about how a mob of people hurls ink towards a state institution during the protest that has gripped Albania.

Likewise, the reported seriously injured casualty numbers and rates are also on the decline.

Violent thefts are reduced by 60%, from 269 thefts in 2013 to 108 in 2018.

Armed robberies have been reduced five times to 22 cases in 2018 from 96 in 2013.

Acts of destruction of other peoples’ property by using explosives have declined too, but not to the rate we would wish should the explosive wouldn’t have been the main opposition Democratic Party’s preferred tool of anti-democratic outpouring of grief after turning into a mob of bums wandering aimlessly about the Parliament building, the Prime Minister’s office and the Ministry of Interior, seeking but unable to seize power that can be assumed only through elections and by not knowing this they are hiding among the people, in search of desperate and blind people, young thugs who put caps on head and assault policemen encouraged by the soundtrack of movie “Skenderbeg”.

The data on road safety have also improved, yet they still need to significantly improve. The road traffic fatality rate has been halved compared to the previous rate, while literally no one in the international community disputes, just like no Albanian citizen disputes the eradication of the cannabis cultivation phenomenon.

These are all results of a work that is still far from being complete, but an ongoing process. These are results of a great job to reform the State Police and free it from the double politics’ and crime’s claws and move toward the announced objective for the State Police to achieve the average of the police of EU member states in term of performance.

And precisely why it is an ongoing work the Vetting process in the State Police is today the key to continuing this work. The proposed changes reflect a more practical approach and charge the internal control structure of the State Police to press ahead with the process, after being vetted first, thus leading to significant savings that will help us create a significant budget space to continue to support the State Police.

We found the worst-educated police force in region and Europe.

We found an ageing police officer workforce.

We found the worst paid police workforce in the region and Europe.

Today, it is a yet incomplete but ongoing work.

Our police officer workforce is better paid, but far from enough.

We have today a better educated police force, but still far from enough.

We still have a police workforce that do not meet the required age standard.

I would like to reiterate call on the Interior Minister to finalize an already launched project on creation of the State Police’s security company to offer guard and security services for non-high security and special importance facilities and introduce a new security workforce in the deformed market of the private security guards and police sector, which would provide opportunity for many ageing and ineffective police officers to go through a smooth transition from leaving the State Police service to retirement. So, an intermediate period for them to continue work and earn their living, while significantly improving the security and guards service by reducing costs.

A whole private security and guards police industry that fails to meet any standards with a large number of badly paid, abused, discriminated private guards and unable to provide service because the hefty bills paid by the institutions to be protected by these private guards mainly end to the pockets of the security company’s owner and are not translated into decent rewards or proper insurance contributions for everyone.

Making a state-owned security guards and police company operational will make the security market more competitive and whoever is not worthy of it should walk out of this market. The goal is not to create a monopoly, but to develop a competitive security services market with services on offer meeting the standards ensuring safety and protection of the public buildings, property, and integrity of their activity.

The current situation is that everything can happen in the buildings and facilities guarded and protected by private guards. Today we are still in the conditions when, if there are any cases, just like it was the case when university halls were absurdly blocked, with private police members shamefully being shown on TV channels. It was really a shameful situation. The state is also to be blamed for allowing these so-called security guards operating. But to date, or until recently, we have had no adequate response regarding this project initiated by the previous Interior Minister and now being developed by the current Minister of Interior. I hope the project will be finalized soon and will then be forwarded to this Parliament for approval and create conditions for a proper advancement in the right direction to regulate whole scope of this currently highly-problematic activity, which will certainly generate income for the State Police.

At the same time, it is indispensable that sooner rather than later, the package of amendments to the Criminal Code Procedure is forwarded to the Parliament in order to address a series of serious concerns regarding the assault because of duty, as well as to address some loopholes that allow judges and prosecutors to still joke around with the organized crime and criminals. They give themselves the right – and we should not allow them to do so – to making abusive interpretations of the present loopholes in the Criminal Code.

Work is already underway on rewarding the Criminal Code of the Republic of Albania as a whole, but it will take time. While there is not time and such concerns should be addressed urgently. The package is designed to provide adequate answer and provide the state with a much stronger argument, a much stronger legal instrument in face of barbarians who invade the football pitches and use violence in sports.

The package will provide adequate answer to barbarians who raise hand against doctors while on duty. Four doctors have been assaulted while on duty from January to date. I have carefully examined the four incidents to figure out what doctors were doing and why they were assaulted. In the four incidents, there is no indications to suggest that the doctors have provoked the assaults, which are intolerable.

An adequate answer to the barbarians who think that by pelting stones at the State Police members on behalf of the political party, which has called them to take the streets, is an act of bravery. “Free our sons!”, the wanderers’ party shouts while wandering about after bending the Albanians’ ears about threats and warnings that something that should not happen will actually take place this time. Nothing else will happen, but they will keep shrinking and we will continue living up by the duty and task we have been trusted to do.

An adequate answer will be provided to the barbarians here in the Parliament too. And this won’t be a temporary, but a permanent answer, because it is incomprehensible to everyone that a MP enjoying parliamentary immunity physically attacks another MP. It is intolerable that a MP to physically assault the podium and the cabinet members. This should be included in the Criminal Code too. It is impossible to continue like that. Let alone the high officials in public office, mayors, and MPs themselves, who should not be vulnerable to assaults on the street and it is intolerable that a mind-blinded individual attacks them physically and he is then amnestied and escapes justice with a fine only. Misdemeanor and violence cannot be punishable by only a fine, though the moments when this violence begins it is the politics that inspires it. The expression that “politics of crime encourages crime” is deeply embedded and has been illustrated in this country over the years, when the Ministry of Interior and the State Police have been assaulted not by ink being sprayed on the walls, just like it happened today, but by mud-charged and heavy stones of words regularly hurled against them.

The package should also include our strong will to deepen separation of politics from crime and government from the criminals. This separation, quite unlike what has been propagated over these years, started only when we took over our first term in office.

They will keep on doing what they are doing as they are desperate and hopeless. They know quite well they can’t win elections. We are not here obliged to think about ways how to provide them the opportunity to understand what democracy is. We are here obliged to think about how to do the right thing for Albania on daily basis. And the right thing for Albania now is that they stay where they currently are. They have chosen to take the streets so let them do so. While we will continue on the path we have pledged to lead Albanian citizens.

It is certainly part of our duty not to violate the contract with Albanians in order to lure them and abandon the streets, but, for the sake of the path we have chosen, we are willing to offer them the opportunity to feel involved. There is only one possibility for their inclusion today; they should give their contribution towards what they have boggled the mind of Albanian citizens and the international partners alike, and towards what their political partners in Germany used influence, like never before,  to include the electoral reform in the European Commission’s recommendations.

Today, we are here and committed to include all IDIHR recommendations in the Electoral Code, as the European Council suggests. Meanwhile, they have taken the streets, refusing to sit and agree on this reform.

They didn’t agree either on this reform, nor on their two famous demands. They have of course forgotten, as they always do, to sing the same tune. They just alter the lyrics, while singing the same old tune: e-voting and e-counting.

I personally oppose e-voting, but, exactly because we wanted to find a path to consensus and try both e-voting and e-counting, hoping that they would then probably admit the election results, we have been intensively working and we are ready to implement several pilot projects and look at the outcome, so that we can then expand this mechanism.

But they don’t accept this either. What should we do then?

We should simply move forward. We are not in a hurry yet to adopt the election reform in the Parliament. We are here. The ladies and gentlemen who have taken their seats on the other side have not been handpicked and brought here by us. They have been on the electoral lists that have been drafted and signed by the “doctor of horoscope sciences” Monika Kryemadhi and the artist Lulzim Basha.

Meanwhile they have taken the vacated seats as stipulated by the Constitution and the law. So, the respective Parliamentary Committees that are being created with the participation of the ladies and gentlemen, who have joined the Parliament, will demonstrate the cooperation with the opposition in the Ad Hoc Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reform, where will definitely find a way out so that there is an open door to them too. Not here in Parliament, but an open door to the table of talks. We are ready – since they hold their party’s stamp yet – to recognize the right to put the stamp on their proposal, recognize the veto power too, but we will not wait a long time. We will be waiting as long as it is reasonable, because we don’t want to spur subjective judgments by the European Council in June.

They don’t want the accession negotiations open. They short-sightedly think that by doing what they are doing they would possibly hamper opening the accession negotiations. They may have an impact, but the rest of the short-sighted thought that by blocking the opening of the accession talks they would seize power easily is just desperation.

Today and in the coming days we will hear the same old tune: “We won’t take part in the elections.” It is up to them. It would have been in their own interest to take part in the elections. Of course, Albania wouldn’t be honoured should the acronyms of those parties are not included on the ballot papers in the local elections, but this is to their detriment and they are just harming their own selves. No matter whether they participate or don’t participate, the local elections will take place on the scheduled date and we will take over governing also the municipalities that have been government by them to date and will govern a lot better than them, both for those who vote and who don’t vote us.

The idea suggesting that a development will take place, or that the rules of games will be reversed, or a compromise will be reached, including the mandate that the Albanian citizens have granted to the Socialist Party to govern alone until 2021, is just a comforting idea to drum support for the next Thursday’s protest. But this idea is no worthier than that and takes you no further than that.

It is an idea just to stay behind the fence. That idea won’t help them to enter this Parliament earlier than June 2021.

Thank you!