Speech of Prime Minister Rama at the German-Albanian economic conference:

Hello everyone!

Chancellor Merkel’s presence in this business park designed and built by the Lindner family makes complete a very important day for Albania’s relations with Germany.

We are very grateful to the Lindner family, not just because they decided to invest 100 million Euros in our country, but because through this investment they are bringing to the heart of Albania a piece Germany, a radiant example of understanding of free enterprise as an economic, social and urban contribution, an interaction bridge where will circulate not only money but also new ideas, a new knowledge, a new culture of cooperation and interaction in the new market economy.

A few days ago I learned with pleasure that the company has entrusted the husband of one of the four daughters of this family, Mr. Ulmer, the direction of this new venture in Albania. This is good news for Albania because this sir has no way but prove the family of his wife, through success, that he has fully deserved the heart of his wife.

But joking apart, although joking is half the truth, the biggest truth is that we want German investments in Albania, not only because our country needs a lot of money and of real employment, and basically 10 thousand people are expected to be employed by the end of the investment, but also because German entrepreneurship promotes a new culture of the relations with work, environment, with law and the state.

Chancellor Merkel is the only leader of old Europe to understand easily and without being astonished the difficulty of new European societies emerging from behind the Iron Curtain to adapt to the culture of work and coexistence of the Western democratic system.

She has experienced the dark times of the communist dictatorship, and I know better than anyone that the collapse of interior walls that divide adult peoples’ outlook into two quite different systems, cannot last as much as the physical collapse of the Berlin Wall lasted. On the contrary, it maybe lasts as much as the decade-long time which led to the historic moment of the physical collapse of that wall, whose cost societies emerging from communism are still paying in proportion to the depth of the darkness of the isolation they lived.

Among them, Albania has agreed to pay the highest cost, since our country’s isolation was even more extreme. Enough to say that for us, DDR looked like an inaccessible planet, not only because we were not allowed to visit it, as we were not allowed to visit any other country in the West or the East for three decades in a row, but because the conditions of those countries cannot be compared with the conditions of our country back then.

Emerging from darkness of extreme isolation into light of the road to freedom accompanied by the scream of the student democratic movement “We want Albania like the whole of Europe!” coincided with efforts and sacrifices of a different kind. We realized the ruthless truth that to make Albania like the whole of Europe, we would need much more time than the days it took to change the regime in the late 90s. Similarly, in the way of building democracy, we learned that the level of development of the country is not determined by what we have but by what we know. At the same way, the per capita income does only reflect the huge gap that separates us from Germany or other developed countries, while the real difference is determined by the difference in knowledge.

Therefore, if there is something irreplaceable and unrivaled in the integration alternative to the European Union, it is the great potential of knowledge inherent in the integration process for the modernization of state and society. Just as, if there is something that makes unique the opportunity given to us by the cooperation relations with Germany, it is not simply the fact that Germany is the first donor, with approximately 1 billion Euros invested to support Albania during these years of efforts to have freedom work for our welfare, but it is the truth that knowledge acquired from this opportunity is an added value of these relationships.

For example, Albania is Europe’s second richest country for water resources after Norway. But like no other country in Europe, and in the region, Albania has been suffering for two decades from deficiency of drinking water supply, land irrigation and, although there is a tremendous potential hydropower, it has been suffering from severe deficiency in the power supply system. Donors have invested over the years as much money in the system of drinking water supply, or even in that of irrigation, as it would have been enough to have today fully operational systems. But most of the time, money was wasted and donors have often blamed Albanians for not paying, for lacking maintenance and so on. It is not hard to find what Albanians do not do. Whereas, when you see for example an Albanian city like Korça, which has a water supply system that provides drinking water to the city 24 hours a day, and where every citizen does not only pay but consumes much less water per capita than anywhere else, then you cannot help but ask: why aren’t Albanians a problem in this case?

And the answer is clear: Because the donor, KFV, has not just invested in the reconstruction of infrastructure, but it has first of all invested in increasing human capacities through conveying Albanians knowledge on the new system and its administration. This aspect makes the German financial assistance, an assistance that does not leave behind only a quality infrastructure but also an added human capital; an assistance that creates a system and brings a new management culture.

The same can be said without exaggeration for the free German enterprise. The young girl that just spoke is a living fact of this truth. Suffice to look around to understand that the free German enterprise does also bears the culture of a system that stimulates the quality growth of human resources and communication among people.

Therefore, I constantly insists on underlining that this added value, borne by both state support and the German enterprise, constitutes a major contribution to our path on building not just the operation systems in various sectors, but the very European Albania.

The figure of German subjects or of those with a joint capital registered in Albania is incomparably small in relation to our desire, but I believe also with our potential to fulfill this wish in this regard. Such is the figure of our trade volume with Germany, although Germany is one of Albania’s main trade partners among EU member countries. Recent signs are encouraging, but we are still at war with the discouraging image that investors have created on our country for years, and also with corruption in the judicial which constitutes a real cancer in the body of the Albanian State. The improvement by 40 positions in the ranking of the Doing Business report of the World Bank since the first year of our government, the significant achievements in the fight against crime, the radical and successful reform in the power sector, as well as the curbing of the epidemic of illegal constructions have had a positive effect on the image of Albania and have increased the confidence of investors in Albania.

Meanwhile, the new law on strategic investments and the new law on tourism will come into force in a few weeks. Together with the new legislative package of energy, on which we have worked with the Energy Community in Vienna, they constitute a new platform support for foreign direct investments in Albania.

On the other hand, the turn started in education based on the German model of the dual system of vocational education, as a sure way to increase employment, will start to provide year after year direct results towards increasing the skilled labor force, on which investors have a special interest and about which we talked today with the Chancellor.

This fall, our parliament will pass a radical reform of the justice system, which is the fruit of a very deep process of consultations and close cooperation with the international expertise of the European Union and the United States. This reform, delayed for so many years and long-awaited by the broad public in Albania, but also by the European Commission, will pave the way for a profound transformation process of the judiciary. I believe that it will be the winning recipe to destroy cancer in the justice system. Obviously, it will definitely help increase investors’ confidence in the economic legal order of our country, as well as Albania’s reliability on the path to EU membership.

Our reforms have been applauded by all international financial institutions, as they have been commended by the European Commission. They constitute an important basis for moving quickly forward in the modernization of the state and for a sustainable growth of economy and social welfare. But, undoubtedly, it is foreign direct investments that will make the difference in our hard way, in order to move from an old and exhausted model of economic growth with high unemployment – whose main sources were remittances from immigrants and the construction boom, two sources that we actually do not have any more – in an economic model with sustainable growth resources, energy, minerals, oil, tourism, agriculture and manufacture.

We are ready to welcome German investments in each of these areas, just as the numerous fans of the German national football team look forward to receiving the dress of the AMC mobile company with the purple uniform of Deutsche Telekom. However, the T-Mobile color is one more reason why we, Socialists in Albania, are the most eagerly impatient generally speaking.

Mrs. Chancellor, we do not have a great coalition in Albania with the sister party of CDU, but do not worry, because when Germany wins championships, there are more cheerful Albanians than when the Albanian Socialist Party wins the elections. Furthermore, I believe that we are a unique exception in Europe, because at the famous qualification matched played in Saarbrücken in November 1983, between our national team and the German national team which had to necessarily win in order to continue with the championship, Albanians here jumped for joy when Germany scored in the very last minutes and Albania lost the match.

Allow me ladies and gentlemen, to express Chancellor Merkel on behalf of all of you a special gratitude for the fact that, although this is a highly busy moment for her, because also of the Balkans, she kept the promise made last year during my visit in Berlin and came to Albania, although none of us would have certainly misunderstood her had she postponed her visit here today, because of the events that have put the focus worldwide in Brussels.

No big organization is ever free from problems and challenges.

Problems and challenges of the European Union are now the biggest in the history of the Union. But amid the noise of the day-to day life, even when the noise becomes the great mess we are seeing in Greece and around Greece, or the particular wrath because of the tragedies that have occurred due to increasingly frequent and desperate flows of immigrants towards Europe, it is sometimes important to take a little distance for a moment and ask a basic question: is Europe a force for good or is it a force for evil? I know the answer, and Chancellor Merkel is a significant part of it.

Even here, in the so pro-European Albania, even in this room, there may be people who looking at what is happening in Greece could say: why the hell would we want to become part of all this? Many others, across north Europe, looking at what is happening in Greece, could say: why the hell would new south countries want to be added to the southern part of the European Union?

We Albanians remember very well, since the issue of the Albania’s candidate status was being discussed, that our country had no small opponents to our request. But Chancellor Merkel and others saw “the bigger picture” and remained faithful to the vision that Europe is built on its founding ideals and who ignores them, who puts them aside, they put aside the project of the founding fathers of the European Union. This very fresh historical memory on the role of Germany and of Chancellor Merkel in support of Albania should impose us to similarly remain faithful to that vision and become every day worthy of the further support we need, be it from Germany or form all member countries. A support that we should merit on the not-at-all easy battlefield to European integration, through real reforms and unstoppable modernization of the state. We have to be firm, reliable, serious and work hard based on clear principles and being fully convinced that the greatest achievements come when we work properly with others and when we learn what we need from others. And there is no doubt that friendship and partnership of Germany and of Chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as her solid, trustworthy and serious example, have been a great help and a constant inspiration for us.

Einen zer herzchlichen dank Bundeskanzlerin Merkel!