Within the framework of the Bled Strategic Forum, Prime Minister Rama took part in the leaders’ panel discussion on the challenges of EU enlargement, alongside the European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Croatia Andrej Plenković, the Prime Minister of Slovenia Robert Golob, and the Prime Minister of Montenegro Milojko Spajić. The panel was moderated by Nathalie Tocci, Director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali.
Prime Minister Rama underlined that Albania is moving forward in the accession process, with full commitment to meeting the milestones and fulfilling the criteria set by the European Commission.
“We have clear objectives laid out by the Commission, which challenge us to meet all the milestones and all the criteria to conclude the negotiations by 2027. That is exactly what we are doing — pushing ahead, moving forward,” said Prime Minister Rama, among other remarks.
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Nathalie Tocci – As I mentioned earlier, both Albania and Montenegro do represent the frontrunner countries of the process, and the ones that, if we fulfill the Bled commitment and do better, appear to be on the right track for this.
So, Edi, perhaps let me begin with you and perhaps turn to you, paraphrasing what Marta was saying, what is it that you are doing to put reforms above the day-to-day politics? And, you know, what is it that you can tell us today to persuade us that Albania is on track, not for 2030, but as you yourself said, for 2027?
So, persuade us that this is indeed what is happening and how Albania is going to meet that pledge. Thank you.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Thank you. And first, it’s really very nice to be here on the 20th anniversary of this forum, although I have not followed the old 20. And I want to make very quick remarks, two remarks.
Number one, I saw the film and I was amazed to see our former president being the same. Like Slovenia every time I come here, nothing changes, the same, perfect; and the second remark is, I don’t know for what reason, maybe strategic, but the chairs become tinier, increasingly uncomfortable. Maybe you have a message through the chairs. I don’t know. This panel only, just to tell us, just to give, just to tell us we must finish quickly. But if we wanted, you wanted us to finish quick, first, no Italian moderators, because they become the main player, and second, no Balkan people, you know, and no candidates which are even more frustrated and frustrating.
So, no, I think it’s not that we are saying that we are ready for 2027, but it’s that thanks to a Slovenian record breaker in swimming, we have a very clear objective put on our table by the Commission, challenging us to deliver on all benchmarks and on all criteria, and to end the negotiations until 2027. And then, of course, it will be the member states and it’s another part of the process.
So, what we are doing is exactly that we are pushing and pushing and pushing and not asking questions, because the best thing to do with the European Union is to say yes, you, you must do this, you must do that.
Yeah, they’re not negotiations.
If you mix Bled with Brussels, then you are F…. So, if you don’t want to be F’d, you must Bled the sharing of a vision and different opinions and everything you want to express and then go to Brussels and simply be a very, very diligent student.
But this being said, I want to say that there is no rush, because I believe that the most important part for us, at least, Albania, Montenegro is a big country, I’m talking about Albania, is to use the process of the accession as a process of state building, because Europe is a bless for a country like us, because it’s the only place where you can get the knowledge of how to build institutions. We never had institutions before in the real sense, and building institutions is the most difficult exercise. And this is what makes the difference between Afghanistan, Iraq, or name it, where our very dear friends from the other side of the ocean have thought that with bombs and with values you can change the country, but it’s not the case. What we have in Europe, although we got out of a history that was similar, very similar, Iraq, Afghanistan, whatever, in terms of lack of freedom, in terms of all brutalities, is the know-how of institution buildings.
So, for this I tell everyone back home, we must be diligent and do the work. It’s not something we necessarily like, you know?
We don’t necessarily like to have the traffic as perfect as in Germany, but we must do it. And Europe is here to teach us how to have traffic lights and how to have good circulation within institutional life. It’s amazing. And we are progressing, but beyond the leadership, I must say, in our case, the Albanian people, we are far, far from the second in terms of being Euro-optimistic, because we love Europe unconditionally, and although Europe has made us suffer a lot, we have the full conviction that we are going to marry one day.
So finally, finally they have cut some of the bullshit, which took many years saying, ‘We love you, but we are not ready to talk to you. We love you, but now they are talking’.
So, there is a step further, as Marta says, I say it’s marriage-based, she says it’s merit-based, so we need to deserve the marriage, and we are working for it.
Thank you!
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European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos:
From the technical part, we are moving, you know, in the last eight months we have opened more clusters than in the last five years and closed more chapters than in the last ten years. We will open two more clusters for Albania this year, so we already agreed with Edi that we will celebrate first in Brussels and then next year with a football match between candidate countries and member states in Tirana and the President of UEFA will play with us and perhaps some others too. Then, of course, with Montenegro, and now with your help, thank you for this, Andrej, we are advancing and it is possible, you know, if we finish in 2026 with the technical part of the negotiations, then in 2028 we could get the 28th member of the EU. If Edi will do it as he is doing now excellently in 2029, we could have the 29th new member of the EU, and then it’s shortly 30, but then my mandate will be at the end. So I don’t have enough time anymore, just four years more, so I have to hurry up. But may I, if I just add, I was speaking about leadership and how this really is, you know, for me, yes, I am goal-oriented, that’s why we made the Eurobarometer on enlargement. Tomorrow we will publish all the results. The citizens of Albania support the EU membership by 92%.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: We are loyal people, you know, we supported the Ottoman Empire by 92%, we supported the Soviet Union by 92%, we supported Maoist China by 92%, and now EU. And our best is that even when they fail, we are with them until someone else comes. So when you will fail, we’ll say no, we are EU full stop, like the Japanese soldier in the forest.
– But I wanted to ask Andrej, and in fact, you, Edi, because your remarks, although they were not intended to do so, but they sparked a thought in my head. And that thought in my head is that as we meet here in Bled, others are meeting in China. And there is a different order, if you like, in the making, right? And there’s a love fest going on as we speak between Putin and Xi and Modi, and several other mostly rather unsavoury characters. And so it’s not as if this conversation is happening in a vacuum. I mean, it’s not as if we will have forever. That window will be closing, and it risks closing even sooner than four years unless we actually do speed up. And so, Andrej, I wanted to kind of perhaps come to you and ask you to reflect and kind of put this discussion within that broader geopolitical context. And also, what is it that can be done to send a message to our own populations, be it in member states or be it, Edi, in candidate countries, in American candidate countries, that actually this is a region that can add to the security of Europe?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Sorry, it’s stronger than me now because he mentioned Alaska, and as I am haunted by something I told here about Putin and the time zones, I just got in my mind something new about Putin’s waste biological bag, that wherever he goes, he has a waste biological bag to collect and bring home. And the reason why is that he collects proof that wherever he lands was historically Russia. Understand?
So I want to go back one second to the joke, sorry, to the half-joke and half-truth about our 92% historically, because it’s true, but at the same time, it was never our choice.
So we were fully in with all empires, and the first empire that we have embraced because of our choice is the European Union, and we are very devoted to it.
By the way, I don’t think there is another country so far in Europe where you can have a campaign and you can run an election exactly on that, on the EU, and the reason why we won big this time I think was very much connected to the EU pledge and to the call for all the people to gather around the flag and bring the flag in EU.
Now, I was before in another room and in another talk and someone from Slovenia said to me, you are doing great, but be careful for what you wish, because we are in the EU and it’s not going well for us, and I told them, listen, you are in such a good place in Slovenia that if we go through the list of things you have and we would wish to have, it’s huge, but there is one thing in the list where we beat you, which is optimism.
You are quite depressed here, you know? And because it’s so perfect, it’s so beautiful, and you are really scared that whoever touches something will do something wrong, you know?
While in Albania, there are so many things we need to continue to improve and to adjust, but it’s just the drive. And secondly, to your question about what happened in China, here comes the part that has nothing to do with our negotiations but has to do with me as a European, free European. I believe that Europe should have been there, so I believe that Europe should be everywhere where the world meets.
Europe should give up, it’s not just Europe, it was the whole collective West until a while ago, since the change happened in America, but should give up on trying to impose to the others its own way of living. What we need to do is to protect our own ways of living from the others, but not to select friends and to select whomever we want to talk with based on their ways of living.
By the way, I represent a country that fully stands with Ukraine and the only country, I believe, in Europe that since the fall of the Berlin Wall never had a visit to Russia or never had a guest from Russia, so nobody can say that I have any kind of confusion in my mind, but I believe that Europe should not wait from the other side of the ocean what’s next with a peace plan.
Europe is first and foremost peace, is culture of peace, is peace and culture. So, of course we have to defend ourselves, of course we have to improve our defence, of course we should not rely on others, but how come we don’t have yet a plan? And what do we wait for? We wait for what? For the next move. So Viktor Orban is a very controversial figure, a good friend, I appreciate a lot, Antonio, I appreciate a lot, Viktor, I appreciate a lot of this gentleman here, and I don’t base my appreciation on how I agree or don’t agree with someone, but how deep the conversation goes. And when he mentioned a ceasefire some time ago, he was treated like a pest. He was treated like, you know, like the waste biological bag, you know.
And when suddenly someone else on the other side of the ocean mentions ceasefire, suddenly Europe discovers that there is also a ceasefire, but it’s too late. It’s too late.
Nobody is going to fall for it. Now what are we waiting for? We are waiting for someone else find someone, something else, and then we find ourselves in front of a fait accompli, and we become isolated even more from others.
And to conclude, a very dear friend of all of us, I believe, from another country outside Europe, in the Middle East, asked me, have you counted how many friends you had before the war and how many you have since the war?
And this is the question that we have to ask ourselves because we don’t have any reason not to be proactive with all the forces that are out there, and to not have our own, like Antonio said, very rightly so, our own deals, our own communication.
And when it comes to the enlargement, it’s not, you know, it’s not really in, what enlargement is to get Montenegro in? Even if Albania get Montenegro in, it’s not enlarged. It’s practically from very small to too small. So what enlargement is to get Albania in? What enlargement? Enlargement. What enlargement?
We both are like, I don’t know. Our houses. If you enlarge this with us, it gets stronger. It gets more compact. Why? Because it doesn’t leave a part of the body open for viruses, for microbes, for assaults, for infections, and so on.
And this is the point. So if tomorrow things go in a different direction, this will be a wound opened in the middle of Europe. While if we are in, we are simply, you know, closing a space where, from a very little space, it can become a big problem. And we are the only reality in the history of geography, I believe.
So, we are the only country in the history of geography who have two borders. I mean, the European Union has two borders. One outside border, like everyone else, and one inside border. And within the inside border is me and him, you know? Now, what enlargement?
Close this, take, get rid of this inside border. Single market, like we are entering in a single market, will be China or Japan threatening Europe. Bring us in. And we bring some fun. We bring some optimism, some youth, some desire for life.
