Remarks by Prime Minister Edi Rama at event celebrating Europe Day 2018:

 

A great Albanian Renaissance Movement patriot, Naim Frasheri, has left behind a verse we should sing to our children, but also to our European friends, whenever we’re given the opportunity:

“’O the blessed light that rises from where the sun sets in the West!”

It is the verses embodying the entire history of the centuries-long struggle of Albanians to be part of that world they saw through the eyes of their imagination, or sought it by crossing the sea.

The phrase Albanians used whenever they left their homes was:

“I am heading to Europe!”

The expression sumps up the dream, hope and ambition of every man, every father, and every son who left their homes on the way to Europe, to bring whatever their house back in their home country could not afford by being seceded from there.

This is the way the Albanians have been living for many centuries to this day, on May 9, 2018, living this dream, this hope and this ambition, whereas the deep spiritual chasm between them and Europe has kept increasingly narrowing, narrowing and narrowing.

But yet again even today, even being the Prime Minister of Albanians, it is not quite difficult to see the very shadow of this chasm if it happens to come across Europeans who are sceptical about values and principles on which the united Europe was built. This shadow of chasm is right there when you talk with members of today’s European parliaments. But fortunately it is just a shadow of that chasm, because the chasm itself is far more psychological than factual and only a few weeks ago, Albania received a historic backing from the European Commission to open negotiations and ultimately bridge that chasm.

Of course, as in all times of history, it hasn’t been and it is not either today our destiny to be synchronous with, because today, as we are at the door, not everyone behind the door is so enthusiastic and so optimistic they used to be about the future of that home.

However, on 9 May 1950, Robert Schuman foresaw that Europe will not be made at one go, nor in an overall construction. “It will be made through concrete achievements that – he says – create real solidarity.”

Undoubtedly, despite the fact we keep in mind those – fortunately few in number – who remind us of the shadow of that abyss, as we talk about Europe with a child’s enthusiasm today, while many are still trying to make it reality and finalize the most visionary and most extraordinary project people could ever imagine and move forward the European Union project.

If we were to look into the history of man’s power to imagine and the results of the power of politics to act, we would hardly come across a bigger project than that of the European Union. Of course, the United States of America, in this respect, is another great project of the man’s power to imagine and the power of politics to turn a vision into reality. But today, we are striving to open negotiations to join the European Union. Perhaps should it were to become members of the United States of America then the negotiations could have been easier, because we would not have to convince 27 heads.

I am pleased to recall today that few days ago only, the President of the European Council found here in Tirana not only the best scoring words, but also the most striking ones to encourage us on this process, when stating that we Albanians are more European here than some EU Europeans and when emphasizing  that “the recent recommendation of the European Commission to open accession talks, shows that you have made great efforts and are getting ready to start one of the most positive political projects in the history of your country.” And there is no doubt that for Albania today, but for our children tomorrow and for the children of their children too, this is the most positive political project imaginable, worth any sacrifice, worth every effort and worth of the great patience to listen to the least important ones who become protagonists and make the headlines on the Albanian media, but they never appear on the news stories in their own countries.

I am very pleased that our Minister for Europe and the Foreign Affairs has had the intuition to match Europe Day celebration to the cultural heritage, because he is not only a convinced, but also a well-informed Europeanist, who has walked through many corridors where the language of Europe is spoken. And among many other things, he knows pretty well that the criterion of the cultural heritage is increasingly becoming the prevailing criterion when assessing alignment between the European Union and the countries knocking on the European Union’s doors.

On the other hand, today I am very pleased to bring to attention the fact that our National Program, though a hotly disputed and sometimes event highly contradictory as it randomly happens here in Albania, the Urban Renewal Programme, has just found a bigger brother, with President Macron’s EUR five-billion “Heart of the City” National Program designed to renew the centres of the cities and towns across France.

What these two programs have in common is certainly neither their size nor their density of the European cultural heritage values per square meter, although older our Urban Renewal Programme is the little brother, but they share what was essential to our Urban Renaissance Program, strengthening the internal link with the European public space.

By both appreciating the heritage and creating an added values and provide communities European-like spaces rather than being asphyxiated by spaces that lead to very gloomy times of markets and parking lots at their most as the photos selected by Ditmir show.

I would also like to underline that I believe the coincidence in this case is more Hegelian than often the sword and attempt to pave the way to the necessity, coinciding with the 550th anniversary of the death of our national hero, Gjergj Kastriot Skanderbeg, our European flag and the year when we not just want, but we must open the accession negotiations.

Opening the accession talks would be the strongest symbolic coincidence, and not only, of a history we proudly celebrate and highly praise today the figure of “The Athlete of Christendom” as Gjergj Kastrioti was called, a name that sounds good also to those who still keep saying they need more time to think whether the negotiations should open or not; we need more time to think whether we will recognize or not the merit of this people and of this country. Since the merit can also be a relative value given the moment someone is called to recognize the merit and it is not the absolute value on which the foundation of the European society we want to integrate in is built.

But again, fortunately these people are fewer than those who make decisions. And I am pretty confident that the European Union will not treat Albania unfairly as it has employed the globe’s most monstrous machinery of exams, which is the European Commission. I don’t know whether there is a more monstrous tests commission in the world than the European Commission.

I can’t hold back laughter when fact-finding missions arrive in the morning to gather facts and leave in the afternoon. They meet me, see some MPs, they meet also my dear friend Lulzim Basha with whom I share, though in a different away, the love for the Netherlands, and they leave and gather facts.

What facts could be gathered during a half-day visit at a time when the European Commission employs a whole army of countless experts and bureaucrats, who eat facts, drink facts, talk about facts and hear facts only! How a report by this army could be objected and deepened by half-day flights to collect facts during meeting with five politicians?

I hope this won’t turn into the European Union’s cultural heritage. I very much hope and I am inclined to believe that the European Union will not include this kind of practice in the good practices of its political and cultural heritage.

To conclude, since we celebrate Europe Day I would say that Europe has been and will for a relatively long time remain a tough love to us and I believe the basic tough love condition is that when we celebrate, at least, it is better to speak plainly about things.

Not for formalism, much less for any diplomatic virtue that I both unfortunately and fortunately do not posses, I would like to wholeheartedly thank our friend Christian Danielsson and the EU Delegation attending this event too, not for what they have done, but for the fact that by doing what they have done to us – making our life hell, as Albanians say – throughout the process of addressing the five key priorities, sincerely they have provided the greatest help possible and also gave us the proof of what I have said, I say and will always say, the preparation to open the negotiations and then the negotiations are then priceless. It is a journey through hell to succeed in building a modern state, functioning institutions and separation of powers under the Constitution.

There is no other remedy for Albania and our countries but the painful remedy of this process. It is the most difficult, the hardest and the most ruthless process, if you will, but it is the only one.

Expressing deepest gratitude for what they have done – they have just done their job, not ours as they never do it – expressing gratitude for what we have achieved thanks to their job, I would like to emphasize what I have repeatedly underlined over the past days, all over Europe there are still people who haven’t yet figured out what we are looking for. There are people all over Europe who confuse our appeal to open the negotiations with Albania’s EU membership; politicians who think they will be there during entire lifetime though it is highly likely that when Albania’s membership will be put up for discussion they might be all writing their memories.

What we are asking for is just the second half of the cure. That is all. We are not seeking to take a seat on the European stadium’s grandstand. We are still in the process of healing all our inherited illnesses and to be ready to become part and enter that very stadium once full democratic and institutional health. We cannot be denied this remedy. We should not be told “wait a minute, we have other problems,” since everyone has their own problems in this world.

We do of course fully agree with the President Macron’s statement that “France would only support an enlargement when there is first a deepening and a reform of European Union,” but this sentence misses its second part: “deepening the European Union reform and deepening reforms in the Western Balkans in parallel. When the European Union completes its deepening reform and we do our deepening, then we will be ready to talk about our union with each other eventually and once and for all.

That is all and Europe, the European Union, Germany, France, the Netherlands as well and all other countries are obliged to give us the opportunity to simply continue our deepening and they owe us this because they owe the values, principles and the vision these countries and the today’s Europe leadership embody and the loyalty they ultimately owe to the founding fathers. No Albanian was among the founding fathers of Europe. They were French; they were Germans, Italians and others. And on behalf of those founding fathers, their grandchildren who run Europe today should open Albania’s negotiations with the European Union.

Thank you!