The annual meeting of the Diaspora Coordinating Council took place on Diaspora Day on Sunday. The meeting brought together Council members, distinguished Albanian nationals, who have made a name for themselves in various countries around the world through their distinguished expertise and significant contribution to various areas.

Prime Minister Edi Rama, members of his cabinet attended the first post-pandemic expanded meeting of the Diaspora Coordinating Council.

The Diaspora Coordinating Council is tasked with building connecting bridges with the homeland and contributing to the consolidation of a Diaspora aware of its patriotic mission, to preserve, cultivate and spread the best Albanian language, culture and traditions, to support and guide the potentials intellectuals of the Diaspora to serve the nation’s social, political and economic development.

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Thank you very much for attending and first and foremost I would like to welcome every Diaspora Coordinating Council member, who have travelled long distances just to come and attend this moment of reflection and discussion on what we have delivered together and on how many issues we have to address yet, while the relation between the diaspora and the homeland is a dynamic relation, marred also with never-ending problems as times change, whereas interest and relations between the motherland and its sons and daughters scattered all over the world take various shapes depending on the time, the younger generations encounter different challenge. In the meantime, we are all witnessing the fact that the world is being transformed at an ever greater speed, challenging us to adapt and find the best ways to turn these moments of amazing transformation into an advantage and avoiding the disadvantages of these transformations to negatively affect in the course of our life and work.

On the other hand, it is interesting not to forget that the contribution of refugees to emigration in these three decades continues to be constant in our economy. Remittances in the last period have increased compared to a previous period. This testifies to the strength of the ties between people, families and districts, the tradition that is still strong today in the core of the Albanian family. 

On the other hand, this definitely requires the solution we have already showed will and readiness to deliver, namely the fiscal amnesty to ensure formalization of all the labour income of the Albanian citizens in the Diaspora, because we all know, everyone knows, the authorities in the countries where Albanians contribute for decades now also know that the informal economy is not a territory of the developing countries like Albania only, but it is an area existing in the developed countries too and the unreported unemployment and money under the table or the cash-in-hand for unreported employment and unreported hours of work are a constant phenomenon in the developed countries  and of course Albanians are definitely part of such communities and this is an universally accepted phenomenon in the countries where Albanian nationals make up considerable communities.

In a juxtaposition to all the arguments that I am not listing as it would take hours to do so, what we face as a collective controversy against our plans to carry out this action is that Albanians are allegedly “criminals and individuals involved in criminal activities.” Of course we have ourselves, namely the politicians and the media have massively contributed to this, by feeding and conceiving this scandalous image, while totally the opposite is true.

Albanians are important contributors in all the countries they go to. They are important contributors to all levels and definitely to all the communities and just like every other nations and communities, there are certainly elements of lawfulness and crime among Albanians, but one should never forget, and I have repeatedly stated this anytime I confront this sort of prejudice that perhaps Albanians who have entered the world of crime are a disturbing element, but the drug, crime, and prostitution market, the money laundering market was not created by Albanians, but they found it and became part of it. So it is important that this fact is recalled although it is a very banal truth.

Having said all these, I am confident that we will break the barricade of prejudice.

We all saw what happened in Great Britain most recently. We all witnessed the sort of arrogance and demagogy the Albanian community faced there and there is no reason of whatsoever for us to backtrack from this need, a very important need, not an economic one, but also a social need, to place the country in much more favourable conditions and position in the fight against informality, corruption and organized crime.

I would like to assure all the Albanian nationals working and living abroad and find it hard to transfer their savings to Albania. Frankly speaking, we should realistically acknowledge that the remittances they send to Albania are sent through informal manners.

To summarize, because I don’t think it is worth listing everything we have delivered, as really some important accomplishments have been achieved in education and Albanian language teaching, but I think it is now the phase when we should make utmost effort to harvest technology as an opportunity to reunite whole country and our nation in a space that is an alternative to the physical space and where we can tap all our capacities to grow exponentially.

Thanks to emigration, Albanians as a nation are now more capable, skilled and more versed and knowledgeable people. Today’s level of capacity of the Albanian nation vis-à-vis the talent, gifts, trades, and experience in development areas is incomparable to what they were before Albanians were allowed to travel abroad.

If we were to make a simple calculation and create a simulation with all Albanians presumably not leaving the country over the last 30 years and measure their capacities, the findings would definitely show that their capacities would be much lower than today. However, their capacities have been increased significantly exactly because of emigration and this is clearly demonstrated through the examples set by those who have returned back home, bringing all the experience, the knowhow and a new culture of work they have learned and amassed while working and living abroad and they are now successfully investing their savings.

Some of the members of the Academy of Sciences don’t live in Albania at all, but they are still members of the Academy. I am highlighting this as an example, but this could be the case with every university in Albania.

Likewise, we are making efforts, despite this huge and high wall of prejudices and hardship we always encounter, to hire digital civil servants who might be living abroad, but they can still work and join our public administration remotely, without having to report at the workplace at seven o’clock, but instead they are tasked various duties as part of a government agency or ministry. This is totally possible. Some initial examples show it works. This is the case with the doctors too, as certain examples indicate that this works and therefore there is no reason for us not to recruit Albanian physicians, currently working in other countries, to work in the regional hospital in Gjirokaster or Kukes, in hospitals in Lezhe or Vlora.

They can be hired to work in our hospitals through telemedicine.

This way we will be able to integrate all the benefits and make the most out of the experience these people have amassed while working abroad, where they have been provided the opportunity to learn skills and develop capacities and use them in our economy by granting them the opportunity not only to contribute, but also benefit and be rewarded for their work, given that professionals too are not immune to the effects of the economic crisis and the rising living costs because of the current situation.

It would be sufficient for them to earn enough money to cope with the rising electricity bill in the countries where they live, because electricity prices have become unbearable for the professionals in England or other countries around the world.

I would like to thank all the members in the steering council and propose that they start with the preparations for the next year’s meeting that coincides with the anniversary of the Prizren League. I hope you would approve this proposal so that we can embark on the preparations to hold a huge Diaspora Summit and hold another round of talks, seeking to include the government of the Republic of Kosovo and the government of the Republic of North Macedonia this time, as well as other Diaspora communities in other Albanian-speaking territories in other countries of the region.

I very much hope you would support this idea and will help us to host the Summit in the best way possible, so that we hold a beautiful, inspiring and more significant Summit than the one we jointly held previously.

Thank you so much!