Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at presentation of the 2022 defence budget:

 

Hello every one of you here and every servicemen and servicewomen, who are not with us here at this communication event on the next year’s defence budget.

First of all, I would like to be straightforward, since I am given this opportunity, and tell you that I felt extremely good and really very proud at hearing the most impressive praises from the foreign generals, who were here in Albania and led the great mission, the biggest military exercise in the last three decades, namely “Defender-Europe 2021” and of course, you have not learned them from the media, because they were not words for the media, they were not for the sake of saying nice words, but they were words said without any interest and without any need other than the need to express admiration for all of you and for all members of the Armed Forces.

The girl who took the floor first noted that your activity – except for the crisis and emergency cases when you show yourselves out in front of the public – takes place out of the public eye and you should be connected, as it is my case because of my position as the government head, to fully understand importance of this daily activity in terms of energies, in terms of sacrifices and in terms of the added value it provides to our homeland.

By attending this activity in person, one can learn to really appreciate a lot more your qualities and merits of each and every one of you, from the new army recruits to the Chief of General Staff, whom I would like to specifically express my deepest appreciation and gratitude for the work he is doing, as more than once I have been given the opportunity to communicate and jointly attend various meetings with our international partners and I have had the chance to highly value his leadership more than once.

On the other hand, I would also like to sincerely extend my best greetings to your families and relatives, because there could be no cushy job when it is best done, but your job and your mission is particularly difficult, as it involves also the obligation for a significant sacrifice with the servicemen and servicewomen having to work and live without their families, and I believe you need neither my words, nor the words of anyone else to praise and appreciate what your parents, your spouses and your children do to provide you with all the energies, without which carrying out such a mission would be impossible.

I would also gladly tell you today that I look at the future of the Armed Forces very optimistically, because not only will we create opportunities to make the most of the time lost, but also to systematically narrow the gap with many other Alliance armies, in terms of financial motivation, in terms of the conditions and in terms of all the bonuses that definitely stem from your contribution, but also because a colleague, a cabinet member is at the helm of the Ministry of Defence today , and he is the right man at the right time to address the major new challenge of taking the Armed Forces to a whole new level in terms of technological sophistication and boosting our readiness capacity, defence and contribution to others within the Alliance, thanks to the opportunity that technology provides to each country, be it either highly developed or a developing country, to make leaps that would never have been possible earlier, when technology had yet to advance to what it is today.

I wouldn’t repeat what was already said here and I wouldn’t go over details the Defence Minister fully explained here, but I would instead list some points, expressing at the same time my relief that I stand before you here today after having delivered on my pledge to significantly increase your wages. It is not actually the first salary hike after a very long period, when the Armed Forces members lagged far behind others compared to others in terms of the wage level, but it is indeed a significant increase – as I already promised some of you in the wake of the wildfires in August – as a 30% salary hike for the servicemen and servicewomen is already projected in the next year’s state budget, which will soon be adopted by parliament after a process of readings and reviews by the parliamentary committees. I can state today that the government will again increase your wages next year, because I believe there is no reason for our Armed forces – bearing in mind their sacrifice as well as the added value they create and their potential to continuously increase their professional capacities – to lag behind from many NATO member countries, and of course I don’t mean the most powerful nations within the Alliance, but I am talking about many other countries that although being far too stronger economically than Albania, there is no reason not to seek and reach their standards in terms of rewarding the Armed Forces.

With the new salary hike, we no longer have the least-paid military within NATO. However, we are not on top, because I don’t think someone would ever succeed in moving to the top, as you already know the countries on top of NATO in terms of the financial capacities. We are neither somewhere in the middle, yet we don’t rank bottom. This is an initial step and our ambition is to move up a notch and rank somewhere in the middle within our third term in office. I am confident we can succeed in doing so and together we will deliver on this target.

The salary hike, the highest ever for the Armed Forces, also the highest for a sector and higher than the 25% salary increase for the State Police few years ago, is a result of your contribution and the fact that you have honoured Albania and have put the government of Albania in an awkward position to find and provide the opportunities that despite the tough times we are going through – like every other country since no salary hike decisions have been announced in none of the NATO member states – but despite the specific difficulties we face, either due to the blow we sustained because of the earthquake, or the energy crisis, about which we will make utmost efforts to successfully cope with it without affecting the households and the small businesses, then rightly enough we expect these fully deserved investments in return provide a lot more for the country and our Armed Forces, despite their modest size, despite their modest participation in various operations and international military missions, increase with quality their today’s really good reputation and the Albanian army becomes a model to show how a small country, with unlimited economic opportunities, succeeds in building a model military force in every aspect.

The other has to do with the basis, namely embarking on the military career path that is the door to the military academy. We can’t pretend to be where we can actually be and where we should definitely be, having a foundation that for the sake of truth is far from being a foundation up to the expectations of those who enrol the Military Academy, it is far away, but it is completely non-existent in relation to what should be the basis of education for an army seeking to gradually climb up the ladder in the quality NATO countries ranking.

Starting next year, we will launch a phased mega project, with its first phase designed to ensure everything we need to provide today, and with the second and third phases aimed at securing everything we should meet in the future.

We will build a Military Economy that is expected to become a role model in terms of quality and become a point of reference not only for the young boys and girls embarking on the path of the Military Academy as citizens of Albania, but also young boys and girls, who wish to embark on a military career as citizens from NATO member states in the region. Kosovo is not a NATO member, but it is the closest country with us, not only geographically, and this way the academy would become an excellent centre on the map of the military academic system of the NATO countries.

The other point has to do with the indispensability to build in the meantime the readiness and defence capacities with troops and all conventional weapons, a defence force in a space that is becoming increasingly wider and increasingly threatening, namely the virtual space, where technology is being harnessed to build a better world, but also to commit the gravest of crimes.

It is for this reason that we should definitely strengthen our control and readiness capacity over the territory by securing state-of-the art equipment, satellites, super smart drone systems, as well as the defence capacities, by developing an entire mechanism designed to make sure that the entire activity in the virtual world is not vulnerable and 100% safe.

he opportunity, potential and ambition that our Armed Forces, the entire system of the Ministry of Defense of the land, air and naval troops of the academy have at our disposal a space where research can be conducted and where technological development can be done, giving opportunities to servicemen and servicewomen to internally develop technological capacities of the Albanian army.

It is universally known, and you certainly know it better than me, that defense systems and departments have delivered technological wonders, which have then served the whole country and the whole world.

We don’t pretend to serve the whole world, but we pretend that our defence system serves the country and becomes available to talented boys and girls, who would have no reason to leave the country, after being provided no space for their talent to further develop in this domain.

We have been discussing with the Defence Minister for the Armed Forces to create a mechanism of recruitment of the Albanian talents throughout the world, who work as coders in other entities, to contribute to technology as researchers and make this new space available to them as part of our defence system.

On the other hand, and this is the last point, since I pledged not to take much of your time, I would say that it is extremely important for us to further strengthen the Civil Protection capacity, namely the Civil Emergencies. Transferring the Civil Emergencies service under the umbrella of the Ministry of Defence has proved to be the right decision, and we need to equip our Civil Emergency structures not only with quality logistics and not only with quality technological capacities, but also with the entire knowhow to become a patron saint of this country’s citizens on tough days. Not that you haven’t been serving as such, not that you haven’t made sacrifices when it comes to mobilizing troops to cope with natural disasters, but the space to do a lot more is really big. In short, it is a pretty big space to make you all feel not only proud for serving our national flag, our homeland and embodying our national anthem in your daily activity, but also to feel maximum support on everything and every day.

Do not think it is easy for us, for me, the Minister, for the government to know the needs yet failing to address these needs all at once, but it is impossible, you know it very well.

Be confident that addressing your needs will be more and more significant and funding due to be earmarked to the Armed Forces will keep increasing each year. The government will increase your salaries every year. Of course, I hope you won’t demand a 30% pay rise every year, but it could well happen to be even higher in any year, but your wages will keep increasing so that you can deliver on what I already said; so that you face absolutely no difficulties when being deployed in an international missions abroad and join foreign colleagues doing the same job, despite the huge pay gap.

I sincerely thank you for everything you do and wholeheartedly wishing you all the best primarily for your parents, for your spouses, and definitely for your children.

Thank you so much!