Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama in the plenary session in Parliament:
Today I would like to speak with the language of facts, because it is the best way to assess and weigh out opinions. Yesterday, the government passed a decision to increase pensions, which enters into force in March. Starting from March, pensioners will have a higher pension. I’m not saying “high”, but “higher” which means that we need to do more.
We received an economy that was growing between 0 and 1%, if we refer to the official figures, the integrity of which was also pretty questionable. Today we have an economy that is growing at the level of 3.5%. Is this better or worse? Are people poorer or less poor in a country that grows by 3.5%, compared with an increase between 0% and 1%?
The IMF and the WB, two institutions that have the power to objectively assess the economy, with which they don’t make riddles, say that economic growth is based on strong private investments and consumption growth. In a country where consumption increases, is there more poverty, or less poverty? This doesn’t mean that there is no poverty in this country. Just the opposite, in this country there is still a huge problem such as poverty, but this problem has been directly attacked for the first time, without relying on alimony with the hope to get by until the coming year.
The European Commission is an authority that makes the biggest countries of the European Union tremble when it comes to economic parameters. The EC cannot be considered an institution that speaks like some people do here, where even the most elementary notions that don’t require the attendance of an economic school, but just a few months of parliamentary experience, are useless to those who have been in Parliament for 20 years and gibber, without having any relation to the truth, but just one goal: fool with lies as many poor and desperate people as possible, just as hyenas feeding as scavengers.
The consumer positive trend has continued for the fifth quarter, and real consumption growth was 3% in 2016. The budget deficit dropped to 2.4% from 5.2%, since we took power. A country like Albania, with a budget deficit of 5.2% and threatened by a financial collapse like the one that threatened the country in 2013, is it better and more secure economically, than a country that has today a 2.4% deficit, and finally solved the problem on the path of completely stabilized finances, by managing to steer at the very last moment and avoid the abyss where it threatened to fall?
In a country where income rises steadily and goes to 26.3% of the GDP, compared to a historical minimum where it was up 3 years ago, is there more or less economy, are there more or less opportunities, more poor people or less poor people?
This year Revenue reached the level of 27%, and we are at the highest point as we start approaching the normality of the countries in region, although the comparison and our ambition is for more than that. I’m saying this for those who go and protest, not for those who scream in the protest. I’m saying this for the people who have every right today to ask for more, for the people who are not only those who go and protest, but also for those who have not had yet a chance to see in their daily lives the effect of the reforms. There is no doubt that when it is about reading what they feel, I’m on their side and I don’t even try and tell them that they’re not right, that they must be satisfied, since there you have the figures, there you have the results, and there you have the difference. Actually, to tell the truth, all this is not to make us feel satisfied, but it should make all of us understand that after more than 20 years when this country had the illusion that things could be done with a magic wand, and people were just getting by day by day, we are finally doing what it has to be done in order to guarantee statehood in the future of our country.
Yesterday we signed the project for the digital cadastre, for the inventory of real estate of this country, after 25 years, where all documents on property, which was inherited in the name of the right to return property, was massacred with overlaps, with the intricacies, and with conflicts.
What can we ask for and claim more than this in such a short time? We could have done and can do more, but it is out of question that for everything we have done we were aware that we should lay the foundations to make the state. A state without inventory, a state that doesn’t know where its roads and properties are, where the houses of its people are, it is no state.
This is not a joke, this is reality. There was one family who addressed to the court to get their property. But, being properties on all sorts of maps that keep being folded and reopened, the court decision stated: “the claimed property is in a hole”. Do you know what this hole is? It’s the hole created when you fold papers a million times. They couldn’t find their property, as in was in a hole.
A state that doesn’t know where its people are! A state that is having its population registered for the first time!
“Let emigrants vote”, they said for 25 years. Then, why did nobody register them? You need to be registered in order to vote. And not only to vote, but also for many other things, a state must have its population registered. There is no chance to miscount ourselves, as we are not a large population.
Public debit. How come that they keep saying “public debt has increased”? Unless they keep lying, hoping that it will become true. Public debt fell below 70% in the 3rd quarter of 2016, and for the first time in 6 years, Albania has returned to normal trend, and it has public debt under control.
There is one other piece of information, which is even more important than the debt itself. From the 100 ALL borrowed during the previous government, only 141 ALL were invested. Whereas, we invest 194 ALL from the 100 ALL borrowed. This is a fundamental change. Just as every Albanian today pays 63 Euros for debt interests. In 2013 they paid 71. 63 is not a low figure, but is it higher than 71? From 71 to 63, is it worst or better?
These are numbers, not opinions. These are the facts of our economy today. I know that people do not eat statistics, their children don’t wear international reports, people who need to go to hospital cannot be treated with data from INSTAT, IMF or the World Bank. But these are important to understand if the path we have taken is the right path. If the reforms we are doing are the right ones, since these are the results of such reforms, not of a weather change. If the sacrifices required by people, and the pain of these reforms are the right ones. If it is worth it that parents today pay the costs of these reforms, after they were dragged for more than 20 years.
These are facts, not opinions. As it is a fact that 60 fiscal incentives were offered in three years, and made available to enterprises 800 million dollars more. There are 800 million dollars that the state has set aside for the enterprises. We are talking about enterprises that create jobs.
I do not know how the facts and figures can be put into question, and opinions can claim to replace them, but not destroy them. There are 54 thousand more active businesses than in 2013. Is this a deterioration of the economy, deterioration of the employment rate, worsened relationship of the enterprises with the state enterprise, or is this an improvement? 54 thousand more active companies!
By referring to the figures, we refer to a source that is accessible to and verifiable everyone. We don’t make riddles. We are talking about concrete things, about which every international institution speaks, including the European Commission, which can be anything but generous with member or candidate countries when it comes to scan the economy.
The economy chapter in last year’s progress report has been the best chapter on economy, absolutely with difference, since the first progress report was written. Is this all? Absolutely not! But all these are enough to understand the difference between the results and the drums of the rain that will not come down. In June it is spring, and it will be spring.
They keep repeating “learn from Macedonia” in terms of foreign investments. Macedonia has absolutely an admirable budget, and it has set up a model to be taken as an example, but in the classification of foreign investment, Albania is second, and Macedonia follows. They say: “There are no investments, foreign investors are leaving”. This also is verifiable because figures can be found in the state’s accounts. We’ve had 2.5 billion Euros of foreign investments in three years, whereas the last government and previous governments, at the best of times, have had 2.4 in a full three-year period. Then, they come up and say, “This is a contract stipulated back then”. These are jokes. Foreign investments are measured with figures. Neither with jokes nor with riddles.
We are the second country in the region after Montenegro, and Montenegro has an advantage related to the judicial reform here, related to the Vetting. Montenegro’s advantage is that the country has transformed foreign investments in tourism and the coastline, in the main engine generating foreign investments. What is our problem? Once large foreign investors were accustomed to the idea that they could invest in Albania, after the atrocities they had heard, since there are here some large companies, there’s a point where it is hard for them to take the plunge and start investing. And it is the chaos related to the property in the coastline.
I can bring many examples, but I’ll show you just one. The property results to be owned by the state. And investors want to build a resort in an area of the coast. Procedures begin. Work on the documentation, study, designing, etc. goes on for a year, and the moment the final step needs to be taken, a court decision pops out, a fresh decision. One of the most spectacular decisions, saying that the descendants of an ancient family have addressed to the court and claimed 50 hectares. The court gives them 500 hectares. Have you ever seen any court that gives you forcibly tenfold what you have asked for?
These are not to justify ourselves, but to share with the people the reasons why this phase is so difficult and so chaotic. It’s neither a joke, nor a riddle or propaganda, but it’s a very serious phase to lay the foundations to make state, to set some milestones so that we will not go back anymore.
In the “Doing Business” Albania has improved by 32 positions. In the global competitiveness, it has improved by 13 positions. In the economic freedom, it has improved by 20 positions. “Standard & Poor’s” has moved Albania to B+. Does all this show that economy has worsened or that it has improved?
When we talk about the economy improving, we do not talk about a patient with cancer who is breaking the world record, but a mechanism that is being gradually restored, with difficulty, but steadily. This is not the riddle, but it is a fact. When we say that economy is improving, we do not talk about a patient with cancer who is breaking the world record, but about a mechanism that is being gradually restored, with difficulty, but steadily. This is not a riddle, it is a fact.
I have been hearing that energy reform has failed. I’ll say you just this. Following a decision of the last year, this year the company has been able to write off 155 million dollars to contributors who have obligations towards the company. And this is because the company doesn’t need any more the money of the budget to have lights turned on in our houses.
155 million dollars were equal to the amount that was taken every year from the budget to fill in the hole of thefts. Does this shows that the company is better or worse? This is the riddle I’m submitting to you.
There is a record of all years, 100 million dollars from the state budget to increase salaries and pensions. Whereas the previous government allocated 124 million dollars for salaries and pensions in 8 years. Is this better or worse?
We are talking about a country and a government that in 2013 had to negotiate with the IMF not to decrease salaries and pensions, and risked not to be able to pay salaries and pensions in November-December of 2013. Nobody would believe us when we told them: “give us the agreement because we are going to do the energy reform”. Do you know what the IMF and the WB answered us? “Just leave this issue of energy reform aside, because we’ve listened to this anytime we came to Albania to put out the fire. Everybody would tell us, give us the money for we’ll do this”. Now, they use our reform in energy as an example to show to other countries facing the same issue. They’ve said it publicly, but they talk to people who want to listen, and who have the moral capacity to understand, not just psychological, but also a moral one.
Let’s look at taxes and at the history of the taxation issue. If the state has today in its accounts 440 million dollars less as a consequence of the tax cut for all state or private employees, what can you call this? Tax cut or tax increase? Hadn’t taxes been cut, we would have continued to keep those 440 million dollars. Now it’s the state and private employees who receive them. If we add here another 40 million dollars, since the first day the police officers’ salaries were increased, they make 580 million dollars. 580 million dollars which we have transferred from the state budget to the pockets of citizens in just a term, compared to the 124 million that the previous government transferred in 8 years. Is 124 bigger than 580, or does it depend on how you look at it? Do you look at it from the tent?
Why is the tent related to the vetting? It’s very simple, it’s elementary, and it doesn’t need any science. Vetting procedures will start next week in this parliament. The protest could go on normally, nothing would stop the protest; it would even help the protest, because Sali would be here speaking from this pulpit for hours and hours. How come that they gave up on this pulpit just now? Because they don’t want the vetting, and the funny thing is that they don’t deny it. They say explicitly that they will do the vetting because they did not agree with this vetting. But there are not 2, 3 or 5 vetting processes. This is clear, and it should be clear both to us and to our international partners that there is only one Vetting.
Why the comparison with the three laws is nonsense? For a very simple reason, because with the three laws, without the three laws, Albania could not receive the status of candidate country, as it actually didn’t. The three laws were voted, when at the end of 2013 we were told: “there is still to do”. The vetting is the only condition to open negotiations.
I have news for you and for all those who theorize that the failure to open negotiations is related to cannabis, to the elections, and other stories like these. In order to buy some time, the European Commission has already started with us, with the Ministry of Integration, the technical process that will follow the opening of negotiations. The Albanian Government and the Commission have started working together to pass chapters 23, 24, which are the first two chapters of the negotiations. This is an exercise that takes place at a time when the Commission is convinced that Albania is ready, and it only waits for the green light from the European Council. After the green light by the European Council, we have no reason to waste this time, but will be at a more advanced stage.
The blocking of the Vetting is real; it’s not fantasy like the three laws, because neither the European Council nor the European Commission have ever said: “pass the three laws and we’ll give you the negotiations”. They have never said this expressly! While the Commission has said it straight out; the European Council has said it straight out: the Vetting! Not finish the vetting, but start it.
I’ve never liked the connection according to which you are protesting because you don’t want Europe, because you don’t want this and that. I’ll look at the essence. Without justice reform, which starts with the vetting, and without the vetting, it is impossible for us to have the reform we have planned, we cannot have an improved economy, increased employment, more foreign investments, more welfare, for the simple reason that the worst enemy of the economy, employment, foreign investments and welfare is the lack of justice, it’s the surprises by the courts.
It is essential that this is the outcome of a mandate, where the government and our majority have done our best to make up for lost time. Whereas the opposition has wasted time by clinging to its own shadow. Those who call people to protest and those who say “I want the protest but I’m not with the protest, because I expect from the protest to oust this government, although I can ousts this government by myself”, have one thing in common: they have nothing to do with our mission and our goals.
We are neither angels nor infallible. We have absolutely no right to say that we have done everything well, but there is no comparison between us and what is there in front of us. Albanians know this better than I and all of us here, and despite what they hear, I am convinced that they will give the right answer on June 18.
I do not know any other way, also from my personal experience, and that of the Socialist Party, how to improve election standards, unless you sit at the table to improve them. There is nothing more hypocritical or false than to make a comparison between us and those. We didn’t ask for the table to take power by default. We didn’t say “you go away, it’s my turn”. We wanted the table so that this parliament could investigate an election process where we had all the reasons and not a few facts, to believe that it was a corrupt electoral process, and therefore we refused the table.
Everybody remembers that we ended the protest when we sat at the table. We were denied to sit at the table. Let’s not forget also that we received what we required by law. Today, it suffices the request of a competitor to open all the boxes of Albania and see if the votes have been counted wrongly or properly. The introducing in the law of that article was the result of that effort. And this is what we were actually asking for; we were not asking for power. Any comparisons today is just an alibi.
Not based on opinion, but on the fact, I remember that after the 2013 elections, the Democratic Party went to the CEC and opened all the boxes of Shkodra and Lezha. Did you notice any error in the counting for the Democratic Party, for us or for the others? This is for the simple reason that no one is willing to go to prison for the sake of this one or the other one, because the boxes are opened. Also, MPs and representatives the Lezha area know very well what consequences some commissioners have faced in the past precisely because of this law.
Above all, how come that the opposition is not at the table for electoral reform, to make the law it wants? Electronic voting is not about having or not time. First, electoral laws are not made because I want so, and you have to accept it, but they are made by consensus. Second, why should Albania do an exercise that no country in Europe does, except for Estonia which is a unique case? Why should we be the latter? Is it because we have optical fibres extended in every village?
Why should we adopt a voting system that Germany has declared unconstitutional? Why should we adopt a voting system which the Netherlands had and then revoked? Why should we adopt a voting system which all developed countries consider a threat to the integrity of elections, because of possible interventions?
Everybody in the European Parliament, both left and right-wing, laugh at the request to have an electronic voting because it is absurd to condition the process with the electronic voting. Whereas, we asked and imposed a pilot electronic counting in the 2013 elections. We agreed to have a pilot electronic counting because we heard the experts, and it cannot be done immediately in the whole country. We would like very much to have it across the country, but it is impossible. We did the pilot project and it failed. A lot of money was spent, and it failed. Can it be done? Of course it can. We have no problem. The electronic counting is compensated 100% by the opening of the boxes, no matter what. If it can be done, so much the better, but I’m telling you that it failed, and not so many countries have it. They tried in London, and it was a scandal because the counting was blocked due to technical issues, and they started the manual counting.
We have respect for every person who is dissatisfied, except for those who want to use the dissatisfaction of others by means of the lie, so that they can still catch some seats in parliament, but this is another category. I speak for those who are unhappy due to the fact that the results we show have not affected their lives yet. We got a good result in the elections in Kolonje, better than any other time, while in some villages we have not done anything yet. Before the elections Niko Peleshi called me and put through one of the old men there. Do you know what he told me? Nothing has been done here, but we’re not stupid. We have eyes and can see. The day has come that the government is thinking about the municipality and is helping it, and eventually Kolonje will look more like a city, as it used to be. Therefore, we will vote the SP, the coalition.
Be assured that the more you offend people as corrupt, as sheep, as poor people that can be bought with cannabis, the worse it will be for you on June 18!
