The inaugural meeting of the Joint Consultative Committee with the European Union’s Economic and Social Committee was held today, bringing together representatives of employers, employees, and civil society to strengthen social dialogue and cooperation between Albania and the EU.

The meeting, which was also addressed by Prime Minister Rama, marks an important step in Albania’s path toward European integration.

***

 

Prime Minister Edi Rama: Thank you very much.

There is an obligation when you start a speech to say it’s a pleasure. But I truly am very pleased to be here today together with the President of the European Economic and Social Committee, Mr. Ropke, I can say our dear friend and dear friend of Albania, Oliver, for this inaugural meeting of this Joint Consultative Committee between Albania and the European Economic and Social Committee.

We value it especially because thanks to the openness and readiness of the President and his team, we have been welcomed within the castle of Brussels as equals and we have been given the opportunity to feel how it feels to be an equal in that castle. So, this is quite special.

And on the other hand, I’m truly excited that the committee will serve the purpose of enhancing and of helping our stakeholders to grow and to become an important part of the Albania membership and Albania participation in the life of the European family as an equal member soon, I hope and I wish.

It has been a long journey as was elegantly mentioned by the President with a lot of situations in which we found ourselves trapped. But I must say that we are now living in a moment in time when Brussels and the European Union has surprised us with a very strong will and with a very clear readiness to get us in.

And in my memory, it is the first time since we have started this long journey more than 30 years ago that our stars are aligned with the stars of the European Union, not just in terms of the future and the perspective, but in terms of the now. Because, of course, the European Union has always been very careful to say that our place is in Europe, that one day we will be in Europe, that the horizon is a place that will unite us, but we never felt what we are feeling lately.

The readiness to make it happen and to make it happen now. Of course, this is related not just to our good work, but also to the overall situation within our continent and beyond our continent. But what I am trying to tell every day to my collaborators and to the people is that the door is open and we should take this opportunity and do the utmost to be in when the door will close again. Because we know how it works. The castle opens the door and then closes the door. And there are them who have been faster in entering and finding themselves in when the door was closed and there are them who remained out. There are a lot of people trying to say today that it will not happen, that what we are trying to convey, is that we should mobilize, we should make our best to put all the energies in this direction, that this action is just an illusion or is propaganda, because if it didn’t happen in 12 years, why would it happen in the next 4 years?  But, of course, these people are not very well informed that Montenegro opened the negotiations in 2012. Serbia opened the negotiations in 2014. North Macedonia had a different name when it became a candidate in 2005.

And today we found ourselves in the front line. After having opened officially the negotiations last year and this year, as Mr. Ropke said, we have a good chance to open all the clusters and all the chapters.

So, it’s the momentum that we need to deal with and I can’t be more grateful to the President, and I mean it, and to his team, who, by the way, I have to say it, have also a very different smile than the typical official smile of Brussels. It’s different.  Maybe because they work with the freest part of the European society, which is, you know, civil society, trade unions.

Should be an interesting thing to be a trade unionist because you have the chance to say everything bad about the government, but you are not supposed to fix anything that the government is supposed to fix. So, I would like to be a trade unionist and I’m sure that I would be the biggest pain on the neck of the government led by me.

Anyhow, so I want to conclude by saying that President Ropke is one of Albania’s dearest friends and colleagues and is also, I’m sure, the best luck we had because I know that soon he has to be replaced, but what has been built, I hope, will not be destroyed, but will serve as a foundation to build upon. And our journey is a journey that we appreciate as a unique blessing, which comes with the fact that we are in the middle of Europe and so we can use the whole knowledge and all the tools of the European Union to work and to make sure that we leave deep transformation.

And I always say that when you go back in Albania’s past and you try to find who had a past comparable to ours in terms of the pain, in terms of the dark, you have to go out of Europe to find and there are similarities with countries where Europe and where the Western world has tried to change the course of history, but has failed. Afghanistan, Iraq, you name it. But I believe that the main reason why these exercises have failed is not what is usually said. I think the main reason is that these countries have not the bless to be in the middle of Europe and to have the European Union at the next door giving them the knowledge of state building, the knowledge of how to build a democratic state, how to build institutions, because in the end it’s all about institutions and you know it very well.

And without the European Union and without this huge source of knowledge, I’m sure that based on our history, based on what we have been given from our history, we would never be able to be where we are today. Yes, we got free 35 years ago, but freedom is one thing and democracy is another.

And I believe that if you remove the European Union from the picture and try to imagine what Albania would be today, it’s impossible to believe that we would be where we are. Of course, we have a lot more to do and it goes without saying, but the reason why I’m praising so much the European Union is consoling myself and consoling the others about the pains that you have to endure when you have to deal with the European Union. It’s not, you know, the end is positive but the journey is not so positive.  But you have to go through it and we are trying and we are succeeding in enduring the pain and in giving ourselves all the reasons to keep going without giving up.

This gathering today pleases me and pleases us, I’m sure, very much because it’s a concrete picture, it’s a concrete event of how it feels to be together and what does it mean to be together.

And thank you, Mr. President, for having been a true trade unionist in breaking the Brussels glasses for us and in bringing us in with your techniques of trade unionists, which are very much appreciated in this case.

I don’t know what will be your next job, but be sure that Albania will always offer you a job if Brussels will be revengeful and will try to let you down.

So, any time you need a job, come to Albania. I can offer you every job except mine!