Press conference on 2021 state budget and current events:
Prime Minister Edi Rama: it is a fact and not an opinion that the next year’s state budget provides for a significant volume of financial support for people most in need. Bear in mind the fact that the families under social welfare and assistance scheme will receive double cash support until end of this war against the invisible enemy that has affected all of humanity.
Keep in mind the fact that doctors, nurses, and all health workers will see an extremely substantial increase in their salary. If we were to go back in time, and it was not 70 years ago, but just 7 years ago, when nurses received only 360,000 lek in monthly salary, then we clearly understand what we are talking about.
Bear in mind the fact that the teachers’ salaries will increase.
Keep in mind that the volume of investments in healthcare system and the country’s infrastructure will grow significantly.
The real transformation of infrastructure in line with the European standards will go on both in the county’s north and south.
Keep also in mind the fact as we face an extremely challenging front of the fight against the invisible enemy, for which we will have to commit massive funding to ensure vaccination of all Albanians for free, of course not by force, I mean vaccination won’t be mandatory, but it will be granted to every citizen who wishes to be vaccinated – the vaccine will be free and it is not about small numbers.
On the other hand, keep also in mind we will continue to return quake-affected people to their new houses until the last family returns to its newly-built home. The new single-family homes and apartments will be much better, stronger, safer and more beautiful dwellings than the ones they used to live in prior to the tragedy on November 26 last year.
Consider the new schools and you all have already seen that new educational facilities are being built and they are all designed to meet same standards of schools in France, Germany, England and anywhere else in Europe, no matter where they are exactly being constructed, be it a small administrative unit or a large urban centre. The new kindergartens also have been taken to a completely new level.
Keep in mind the fact that a string of health care centres are also being constructed, from the new regional hospital in Kurbin as part of investments in the country’s health system infrastructure, in addition to the projects under the post-earthquake reconstruction program intensely underway in all quake-hit areas.
The last worth mentioning is the fact that in the meantime we are also preparing the relevant normative act to earmark a total fund of $34 million for the year-end bonus for retired people, despite all these sudden constraints and obstacles we face in the wake of the earthquake and the COVID-19 pandemic. We will not deprive them of a penny of what we had planned to grant them before the earthquake and the pandemic were to happen.
And all these represent a considerable effort given the current conditions we are in. I can openly and confidently state, these are a lot in terms of our commitment and not in terms of the sum, which certainly is never enough. Our goal is to keep increasing all these for the citizens.
I would like to state something. Whoever claims this is a minority government serving ten oligarchs only, a government of the wealthy people; they are not a patch on us, because quite the opposite is true. It took this government – this governing majority to be more precise – to take office and commence work seven years and two months ago to make sure that the wealthy ones pay more and the low-income people pay much less. It is definitely not much, but it is for sure. The same goes for those that small business is dead in Albania. They have no idea what they are talking about, because as we speak the number of employees in small businesses has tripled compared to seven years ago and the number of small businesses in Albania has tripled too.
Of course, these do not make the news headlines. Other things take to the headlines, but we can’t correct it, we can do nothing about it, although we love you so much, yet we are in trouble with all of you on this screen.
You can now make any question you want. I think Elia can ask her questions first being the veteran journalist compared to this whole group of young journalists.
–Thank you Mr. Prime Minister. Given that the two ministers, the Minister for Reconstruction in particular, provided full explanatory answers, sticking also to the agreements we have achieved to write two news reports when many topics are examined, I would like to make a question about the current social and political situation in the country. Do you plan to respond positively to the protesters demand on the seventh day of their protest, calling for the Director General of the State Police to step down?
Do you see this protest simply as an outrage at the killing of the 25-year-old man by a police officer, or an accumulation of a revolt against your government, as a part of the public thinks?
Are you taking time to pick a candidate for the position of the Interior Minister, who should also receive the approval of the President of the Republic, so that a similar situation that marred appointment of the Foreign Minister?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Believing in good faith that Elia will stick to the pact and prepare two news stories, one about the state budget and one about the current events, although I think the state budget is part of the current events, I will answer to her questions.
First of all, I think it is a disaster that experienced people with a broad public presence, people who share public responsibility like the so-called political commentators, columnists or opinion makers, who show up on your TV channels or express their opinions on the online media, are actually thrown into a frenzy of rage against the government and they are so overwhelmed by a feeling of revenge and retaliation for their thousands of reasons as not to raise their voice about an incredibly sad fact that has recently emerged in Albania, the fact about abuse and misuse of minors. Interpreting this demonstration of minors abuse as eruption of the peoples’ outrage, as the embodiment of a genuine revolt stemming from an inner frustration caused by the government, as an example that should followed by others when it comes to vandalism, it means that everyone should feel alarmed, and not I as Prime Minister. I am not talking about the Prime Minister and the government. The governments come and go, the Premiers come and go. One can serve a longer term in office, someone else may serve a shorter term, but in the end of the day, nobody is born as prime minister and nobody would die as prime minister. Before being a prime minister and after having been a prime minister, you are primarily a citizen of this country, you are a parent and you are descendant of other people who have lived in this country and others will live here once you are gone. It is beyond scandalous, it is an incomparable shame to see people who can have all their reasons, no matter whether I like it or not, no matter whether I do agree or disagree, no matter whether they are right or wrong to fully commit themselves against me and against the government, but going that far and re-abusing minors, using them as an argument to continue painting the panorama of a latent revolution, which they have long encouraged and awaited for, is a degradation to a catastrophically low level in the human point of view. I can’t find the right words to justify the opinion makers who preach and promote violence, commentators who downplay vandalism, opinion maker who argue the society’s advantages and benefits from setting fire to public assets and institutions; What’s wrong with breaking, shattering, setting fire and destructing everything? This is not a problem for these commentators; on the contrary they say that the protesters are not doing enough.
This is the end. This is something I haven’t found even at the leftist extremist philosophers and theoreticians in France, who are renowned for theorizing and advocating violence as a way to become the master of your own destiny when deprived of liberty. I did not find it.
What worries me today; since you asked and I will speak not in my capacity as Prime Minister? What worries me today is that how could possibly one can go this far? Boko Haram is an infamous and abominable terrorist organization that today has taken the relay baton of other organizations that have traditionally exploited minors. How can this possibly happen in Albania?! Those kids are unaware of what they do. Those kids are not motivated by politics in their being or the idea for justice. Those kids are abused. They are used as cannon fodder. How can I possibly claim that the minors who vandalized the Socialist Party’s headquarters in Shkodra are guilty? They are neither guilty, nor aware of what they do. They are certainly children from families that face their problems, but those who stay behind them and incite them are criminals. Those who advocate this stimulated convulsion with children when theorizing on TV channels and political talks shows, they actually commit a morally criminal act. How this could possibly happen?!
What do they tell to Albanian youth?? What do they tell to Albanian people?
Do they tell them to go out and do that, because this is the way to topple the regime? Which regime? There could be thousands of reasons to contest our government, but this can be done through peaceful protests and through vote.
Take a look back to history of our government.
Which protests have turned out to work and achieve their goals? The violent or peaceful protests?
If this was a protest, as they try to portray it, they should be sure that all high school students in Albania were to join it, as it was the case with the protest against the chemical weapons. They should be sure that all Albanian students were to join, just like it was the case with the protest against the chemical weapons, when not a single leave of grass was burned, not a single pebble was thrown. They simply took to protest and they cancelled an initiative that could have gone to another direction if it was not for them. This is because this government may have lot deficiencies, yet it is not deaf and reckless of the protest.
The same goes for the students’ protest. The students’ protest, except for some excesses causes by few pollutants to the democratic environment after infiltrating the protest, was totally peaceful and students achieved their goal. Why was that? Were we afraid of stone pelting? Were we afraid of the fire? Were we afraid of destruction of traffic signs?
No, but because my awareness and our approach is that we should be attentive, listen and reflect and the government is not strong when it says it is always right. A government is a strong one when it does the right thing. If the right thing helps you to figure out and then do it, those who object something you have done or you they oppose something you have done differently, this is not a problem, but what matters most is doing the right thing.
Some think that we backtracked in the wake of the riots in Kukes staged by a phalanges encouraged to burn things down. No, this is absolutely not true. No, again. Not a handful of people, but even a much larger group is to stage protests, if they are not right and if they fail to provide a right argument, the government will never withdraw as long as I will head the government. But we reflected, because the Kukes residents were right, because that community there was right. The government plan concerning local residents was unjust. The government is not always evaluated whether it is right. The government is evaluated even when it is not right. It figures out what is right and it does the right thing, even though in the cases I just mentioned or in other cases the right thing is achieved thanks to the people.
Democracy is not a perfect system. Churchill has once said: Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. This means that no government has always the right on its side in everything it plans and in everything it does. The right to protest is therefore indisputable, inviolable, unavoidable, but this does not mean that protesters are always right. When they are right, they are right, and this is what distinguishes a democratic government with a democratically-elected government that is actually not a democratic one. This is also what distinguishes our government over these 7 years with the previous government.
Let’s move to the next question. How come that a group of people, who take to the streets, even they are 500.000 of them, call for the dismissal of the State Police director? It is something that is not decided when on the street, but it is decided on the basis of what is right. It was right that the government had to apologize, not because it was involved in the tragedy that took place, but because the 25-year-old man was killed by a gun belonging to the state. It was right that the Interior Minister insisted to step down, not because he was directly or indirectly responsible for the incident, but because it was right that the message of sharing the pain and grief of that family was not expressed through words only and that the Interior Minister could morally say what he actually said.
But these are not as a result of the protest, to set the records straight. These are not as a result of the people who were there. I myself, if I were not to be the Prime Minister today, would have definitely joined the protest. I would have joined the first peaceful protest that would take place, but not to clash with policemen or destroy the windows of the Ministry of Interior, but to express my indignation civically. I would have done so also to demonstrate civic determination to ask and push for justice.
Having said all these, do not forget that professional and correct attitude has been demonstrated since the very first moment. If it were not for some of you – I mean, not you here on the screen, but some of the media – surely the event and the attitude towards it would not have been tainted by all sorts of written nonsense.
Internal Control and Anti-Corruption Unit has immediately taken over to do what is tasked with doing, because it is impossible for the State Police to look into an incident that was triggered as a result of the extreme action of a police officer, and in collaboration with the Prosecutor’s Office they have done an excellent job. In the meantime, the author of this crime was arrested immediately and he appeared before the judge. So what are they calling for?
They are seeking to press ahead with the imaginary revolution cycle that is evolving in Ilir Meta’s and Sali’s heads for two years now. I feel sorry for (DP leader) Lulzim Basha and this is yet another evidence showing that Lulzim Basha is a man without character, because I am convinced that Lulzim Basha has nothing to do with what is happening, yet it doesn’t make him blameless. This should make him feel guilty twice, because if he were to be the opposition leader, he should have shown up and stated these are unacceptable and this is not the way to seize power, because a party could be elected in office through elections only. But as always, he is absent at the right time and in the right place to say the right thing. He is simply absent.
What is happening is nothing else and has nothing to do with these frustrations, they are not about supposed anger and the theories advocated by those keep roaming and showing up on TV studios and boast as if being the supreme commentators of moral and social life, but they are simply another act of degradation by Ilir Meta and Sali Berisha. The two are behind all this. They are the ones who have preached about revolutions, hand cutting and threats suggesting that people would remove us by force and stuff like that. They are right there! It is as simple as that. Everyone knows this. You too know this. I am convinced that each and every one of you already knows what I am saying now. Every Albanian, be them leftist or rightist supporters know this. Those who advocate and promote violence know this too. Those who say what’s wrong with setting fire to the New Year tree and the holiday decorations know this.
Is this the way how one should speak? What is this way of speaking supposed to tell a family watching these people on TV with their children at home? What sort of education are they promoting? Who cares that something was burned down?! In other words, a child can set fire to his home when he feels that he is subject to family injustice and who cares about burning the house, since the family democracy is what matters most.
Last comment about the Minister replacement, I want to say it is merely a matter of time and it has nothing to do with what you actually said.
– Why did it take a normative act to grant a pension to the Rasha family and did not go through the normal procedure? Why was it so urgent?
Secondly, the normative act also defines that the 25-year-old man was accidently killed by a law enforcement officer. Don’t you think that by including the “accidental murder” you have assumed the role of the judge and have given an attribute you shouldn’t have given as long as the court has yet to make a decision on the act committed by the police officer who killed Klodian Rasha?
PM Edi Rama: This is the mess you have created, a mess that has troubled the people’s soul either intentionally or because of ignorance. First of all, it is not a normative act, but a government decision. Second, it is exactly because the government is not a court and precisely because the government can’t assume the court’s role, just and only an unique legal and technical term has been used to justify the decision to grant a pension, and it has been textually written: “killed accidentally due to the police actions.” What does this mean?
This means that the person who tragically lost his life was not the target of any police mission, but lost his life in circumstances of an accidental clash. This does not mean that the person was killed by a bullet that came from the sky. This simply determines that death was the result of an accidental clash. Such an unfortunate encounter has not been part of a police operation; it has not been linked with a command chain, because there are cases and there have been cases when the police have decided that a highly dangerous individual should be eliminated. But this is not the case and it is exactly for us not to assume the court’s role, but simply to grant a contribution, a pension payment to express solidarity with the family, and the decision is an expression of the motive why and how we deliver while in office when we tell people you won’t be alone in your hardship or the problem you face. This is what the text of the government decision tackles. However, this has nothing to do with the accident in terms of having a final say over a court case. The court case is separate. This is all. And if it was for this young man to die accidentally due to a ricocheting bullet then no pension payment was to be granted to his family. It has been the case when an innocent citizen has been killed while the police have been on a mission against dangerous criminals and the family’s victims have not been eligible for a pension payment. In this case, it is the state and the government’s solidarity with the grieving family and it all started with an apology and it continues with another step that will not bring back the poor guy, yet it symbolically shows we stand by his parents.
–I would like to dwell on the IMF report, which called on the government to be more prudent with its spending and it voices serious concerns, considering the economic relief package as one of the lowest in the region. The reconstruction program has progressed very slowly with only 8% of the projects under this process already complete and the IMF calls for transparency over this process. In the meantime, while IMF wants us to be more prudent with the spending and maintain a fund to cope with the pandemic, the government launches tender for the construction of Llogara Tunnel project, earmarking around 4 billion lek in its 2021 state budget for this project. Was this concession project necessary given the country’s current situation?
– Mr. Prime Minister, you were on a visit to the US to secure the COVID-19 vaccine deliveries. However, you returned back empty-handed, without an agreement. How would you respond to the evil tongs that claim that you met the Pfizer CEO in a museum, while some pictures of you while there show you while shopping?
–Third question regards the State Police conduct in the future. A 15-year-old boy was beaten by police several months ago and the State Police chief Ardi Veliu, instead of offering his apology over the police violence, he dealt with the biography of the mother of the maltreat youngster. In the meantime, we have seen that a number of artists and citizens have been violently detained during the protest against the demolition of the National Theatre building, and we have also seen police exercising violence against minors and other protesters most recently, even though they haven’t resisted the arrest and they have been protesting peacefully. Don’t you think you should distance yourself from these acts of violence and should the State Police undergo a reform given the current situation?
PM Edi Rama: I think that – I think, but I don’t hope that Syri TV will ever distance itself from telling lies about everything it reports – deliberately or unintentionally you have just told lies until now. You are lying when saying we are awarding a concession contract. It is not a concession contract. Why do you say that?
In this case, I just hope this is because of ignorance only. Yet I am not fully convinced that this is because of ignorance, and I think it is most probably intentionally. Why do you say “you are awarding a concession contract, whereas people are suffering?” It is not a concession contract but a public work due to be built through the state budget funds. It could have well been a concession project, but it is not. The party of “Syri TV” and the “Eye” of the party are actually the biggest pollutants to the public debate environment and see the concession projects as subversive and decadent elements. It is not us to invent the concessions and it should not be us to deem them as blasphemous or heresy. Concessions are instruments and it depends on how you contract them and how you use them. The difference between us and the party of Syri TV is that we have actually awarded a number of concession contracts, but they all serve Albanian people. Our concessions have in no case increased the spending of the Albanian people.
We have awarded a concession contract on the dialysis treatment and we haven’t asked the patients who should undergo the dialysis treatment to pay more because this service is now a concession. On the contrary, such a treatment is provided for free. We have awarded a concession on the medical instruments and we haven’t told mothers who deliver babies that since we have replaced those rusty surgical forceps from the Sino-Albanian friendship era, when mothers developed infections for days on, now you should pay more. No. They pay nothing.
We have awarded the concession contract on primary health care or the free check-up for Albanian citizens, who are the only citizens who never underwent preventive check-ups, but they were sent to hospitals when the disease had advanced and was terminal. Through that concession contract we have helped so many people to detect any disease and take due measures and it has saved lives, but we haven’t forced people to pay for this service, as it is granted for free.
We have awarded concession contracts on waste treatment, but we haven’t asked people to pay it dearly, because we are cleaning the city.
While the concessions awarded by the Democratic Party stipulated for everyone who crosses the border and the customs point to pay a tariff, no matter whether their trucks were scanned or not. Such concessions determined that the private companies had to invest first and people had then to pay. Of course, I have nothing against you, since you are simply the messenger.
Secondly, you lied when you said that Ardi Veliu has not apologized. Ardi Veliu made incorrect remarks during a meeting of a Parliamentary Committee while exchanging with MPs, but he was unaware that he was being recorded. Just imagine if we were to have cameras and record what Ilir Meta and Sali Berisha say when they meet in Lalzi Bay about the minors, how to throw them into fire, or record everyone of us who at a certain moment could utter something inappropriate. Ardi Veliu has apologized, since you claimed he hasn’t.
It is this government that has introduced the apology and forgiveness. If you can name a previous prime minister who has ever apologized about anything in this country, let’s then be two of us. I think it is a minimum thing a cabinet member, a prime minister, a government official should do in order to be a decent person in his or her duty, when he or she or the structure they head says “sorry, I was wrong.”
Third, you claimed I paid a visit to the US for shopping. We arrived in New York three days ahead of the scheduled meeting, in order to comply with the three-day self-quarantine rule imposed by the New York authorities. Therefore, we had to travel three days in advance and with their understanding we weren’t totally isolated at the hotel. However, you haven’t seen me shopping neither at Gucci, nor at Çuçi. I was photographed while in a stationery. If you were to closely look at it, you would have found it is a stationery. However, even if I were to be visiting another shop, this is certainly not a crime. Whenever I am on a visit abroad, the main items I purchase, if I happen to do shopping, are either paints or sports clothing. I could purchase many other things too. What’s wrong with that? They take pictures while I walk and they say “he is walking.”
They also claim that I met and took a picture with Pfizer CEO at a museum and you are not to be blamed for this, because you think that for a place to be an office a rifle should be on the background and you think that no pictures can be hung on the walls of the office of Pfizer CEO. Or even you think that a picture with him posing with the V sign should be hanged on the wall of his office. If there are no people with the V sign or rifles in their hands, then it can’t be called an office, or a company headquarters, but it is called a museum. That is actually the Pfizer headquarters. As I already said, we flew three days in advance, because of the three-day quarantine rule applied in New York. We took advantage of this time and we walked out of the hotel after being granted a permit by the authorities and we met not only the Pfizer CEO, but also the Rigeneron’s CEO and we engaged in a discussion to do what I know to do, and I do it not for myself – I have never extended a hand to anyone for myself and I have never begged anyone – but I have done so this time for the sake of my people and my country. Just like I did in the wake of the devastating earthquake, I am doing the same to secure the COVID-19 vaccine, because I don’t want the country to wait for the EU to deliver us the surplus vaccine deliveries that the EU member states will share with each other first and will provide to Western Balkans the surplus deliveries. They can provide this surplus earlier, but it may happen that they do so too late and therefore I don’t want to sit idly and wait. I am seeking to provide the vaccine deliveries in early months of the next year. This is the reason why I flew to New York. I was there neither to buy paints nor sweatpants.
To conclude, a wisdom saying has it that “he who accuses you of something you haven’t done, he either has done it himself or he would do it if he was you.”
Sometimes, enough is enough.
As far as the reconstruction program is concerned, we are rebuilding faster than any other country ever facing a similar situation like this. I am totally confident when stating this. I don’t know where the IMF has stated this or how the IMF sees the reconstruction process, but if it turns out that the IMF has actually said this way, I can say that they are wrong. The IMF is composed of humans and they are not beings landing from March.
– Mr. Prime Minister, Sander Lleshaj’s decision to step down was a fair decision, even though he was neither directly nor indirectly responsible. Why would a decision to fire Ardi Veliu from the post of the State Police chief would be unjust given that he could be seen as responsible, since the police officer who killed the 25-year-old man Klodian Rasha was under his orders?
PM Edi Rama: People have been killed in front of this building and the DP chairman Mr. Basha, as you call him, or Luli as I call him, was then serving as Interior Minister and not only he never resigned, but, even as we speak, if you ask him what he thinks about that tragedy and that crime, which was not an accident somewhere in a corner of Tirana, in the dead of the night, when a police officer takes the life of a person in completely irrational circumstances, but it was a premeditated murder or an ordered murder etc.. The then State Police director didn’t resign, but it was precisely this office from where the then police director was ordered not to enforce the prosecutor’s decision. Some of you used to work as journalists back then. Do you understand what you are talking about now? Why should the State Police Director step down?
The Director General of the State Police is a figure that deserves respect from everyone, because he is an honest, fair man, yet not infallible. He made a mistake once and he promptly apologized and he has no links to crime, corruption and every other sort of dirty deed that sometimes, unfortunately, have stained the State Police uniform. The Interior Minister’s resignation was a very civic act.
–At the start of your first term in office you equated the reimbursement scheme of products from farmers to produce collectors and 20% on sale, but two years ago you decided to cut it and levy a 6% tax rate on collectors when they receive it from the farmers, while applying a 20% tax rate on the sale. Both farmers and collectors complain that the scheme is inappropriate and it is bankrupting them, especially because the import prices are lower than the domestic market prices. Can you tell us why you made this change and why this request was not reflected in the next year’s budget?
The second question has to do with the decree by the President, who refused to sign the 2021 state budget law, arguing that the proposed budget doesn’t cover the needs to cope with the pandemic and it fails to help small business and therefore deepens poverty. Will there be any change to the state budget since the state budget law enters into force after two weeks?
In addition to the pensioners, do you plan a 13th salary for the state administration employees, given that they are one of the worst-hit categories because of the pandemic this year?
PM Edi Rama: The state administration employees are not one of the worst-hit categories because of the pandemic. I don’t know why you have jumped to such a conclusion, but the truth is that the public administration employees have not been affected by the pandemic. Of course, I am not suggesting that this is the case with doctors, nurses and teachers, who will see a significant increase in their salaries. The public administration employees are not among the worst-hit categories as they haven’t lost their jobs, they have received their monthly salary regularly and they have been provided the opportunity to work from home for some time. They have been definitely affected psychologically, like everyone else, yet they are not worst-hit by the pandemic. Of course, we owe a lot to the retired people, who will receive what they have actually received even when we were hit by the natural disaster. We will do the same, without sparing anything for them.
I do not understand this question about the public administration employees and we haven’t applied the 13th salary since we have steadily increased their salaries and we think that employees for the work they do, in relation to other sectors, can be considered in a position that in the overall context is OK, for today.
As for the other question, I think figures speak for themselves. There is no need for what one or someone else says. Exports have increased significantly despite the pandemic and agriculture continues to thrive. Number of people embarking on successful businesses in agriculture is increasing and it is them who have realized that in order to be successful farmers should join their forces and work together.
-You confirmed that the government has earmarked a fund to cover an extra year-end pension bonus for retired people. When distribution of this fund is scheduled to begin and what is the amount of year-end bonus benefiting retired people. Meanwhile, businesses have filed a complaint, calling on government to pardon fines and outstanding liabilities. Business community has filed an official request with the Ministry of Finance to pardon fines and instalment payments incurred during the pandemic given that the tax administration is urging businesses to pay outstanding liabilities.
PM Edi Rama: First of all, the government will approve the normative act on the year-end pension bonus for the retired people and disbursement process will commence as soon as possible and all retired people without exception will benefit the year-end bonus. The state budget amount allocated to cover the year-end bonus is estimated around $34 million and it will be distributed as soon as possible.
As far as businesses are concerned, I would like to put it simply without going over details to affirm that businesses have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy full government support and we will continue to further ease burden on business.
-I listened carefully to Mrs. Denaj, who named the state-guaranteed loan instrument or the sovereign guarantee fund as one of the accomplishments and successes this year, the decision to scrap VAT on small businesses and provision of the salaries to around 300.000 people and she said that these measures will be applied in 2021 too. Does it mean that another relief package will be approved?
PM Edi Rama: No, we meant the sovereign guarantee fund. The sovereign guarantee and the employment scheme to reintegrate to the labour market all those who lost their job due to the pandemic will continue next year.
– Do you plan a concrete program to increase employment because it was one of the worst- hit sectors this year and by this I mean especially tourism industry?
PM Edi Rama: As we speak, as many as 10,000 workers have lost their job due to the pandemic. The gap has narrowed to 10,000 jobless people only, mainly workers in big businesses. But, meanwhile, the number of employees has increased, meaning that the number of small business employees is higher than prior to the pandemic.
-Mr. Prime Minister, you commented on the violence used by protesters.
PM Edi Rama: I didn’t talk about violence by protesters.
– You highlighted the violence exercised by protesters
PM Edi Rama: I didn’t talk about violence. Don’t quote me about things I didn’t say.
– Ok, my question is as follows. Do you think that an investigation should be conducted by the Internal Control and Anti-Corruption Unit to look into the violence exercised by the police against protesters? There are a number of cases when the police have used violence when detaining demonstrators.
PM Edi Rama: How do you know this?
– The videos have been already made public, Mr. Prime Minister. There have been cases when civil police officers without identifying marks or badges have used violence. Should there be an investigation into this?
PM Edi Rama: I don’t know what are you referring to and what sort of videos you watch. I don’t know this. You have probably seen policemen exercising violence when transporting protesters. I don’t know what you are referring to. Second, the State Police of today can resemble to the previous police force as much as day resembles to the night. If you are to look at the activity of the Internal Control and Anti-Corruption Unit would realize what I am saying now. The Internal Control and Anti-Corruption Unit is a completely transformed unit and fortunately it is headed by an officer who used to serve in the State Police under all previous governments and nobody can allege that he is biased and the Internal Control and Anti-Corruption Unit performance is in accordance to the law. So, in any event of such incidents, the Internal Control and Anti-Corruption Unit will do its job. However, it is this Unit that would do this job only and not those who Migjeni used to portray as satisfied fools, who sit in cosy armchairs of the media clubs and allege over the police violence. The police are the violated ones and they haven’t generally violated anyone. If we were to consider the general panorama, without going over details that could suggest certain inappropriate police actions, the police are actually the ones violated. The community is violated, the Albanian people are violated, and the capital city is violated. Police of course face a difficult task to be proportional in their actions and I think the State Police have been proportional. And not only that, but when the civic peaceful protest on its first night was taken hostage by a segment of people among the protesters, the State Police were desecrated, not simply subjected to violence right here in front of the Prime Minister’s office. The police were desecrated, not simply violated. You have seen it for yourselves. I personally felt very bad for the State Police that night and I understood the explanation that in a way, the State Police deliberately agreed to be desecrated that way, because the police felt the weight of regret for what had happened as result of the act of a police officer and stood there in front of the building.
But if you are going to ask questions about this, wherever you want, if you are going to ask the ordinary people about this, if you are going to ask people who have been and they are definitely shocked by the incident, if you are going to ask them what do they think about these days, you will get a much clearer answer than mine, because as prime minister I cannot say more than that. But they will give you a much clearer answer about the police and the violators, both for the rapists and for the violence. I repeat, it is really regrettable that there are people who have yet to realize that the government I head won’t give up in face of any sort of violence or pressure.
On the other hand, we kneel down to any peaceful and rightful protest. This is for sure. In the meantime, violence is a disgrace and it has nothing to do with the so-called “awakening”, “rebirth” and stuff like that, but this is shameful act committed by Sali and Ilir Meta, since you asked me what I think about what Ilir Meta thinks about the state budget. Ilir Meta thinks about nothing else, but how to fish in troubled waters. He thinks of the state budget as troubled waters so that he can fish in. At this point, unfortunately for every one of us, Ilir Meta has degraded and he is out of control. He is no longer able to control his own self. He is just seeking to fish in troubled waters. So, I am no longer surprised by Ilir Meta’s acts.
Ilir Meta and Sali have come together, they are inseparable and their only goal is how to get away with what they will actually never be able to do so; they are seeking to prevent Albanian people from electing whom they want.
To conclude, I repeat, I am really sorry for Lulzim Basha, who is silent, just like the switched-off traffic lights and he issues no statement on what is happening. He knows quite well who is doing this. It is not him doing this and I am saying this in order to cause divisions within the opposition, but he has no moral and character strength to appear and say stop to this. He can’t even order “molotova” Ademi to stop it.. Just imagine! A party leader unable to control anyone. This is the situation.
I would like to conclude by issuing an appeal to all parents to protect their children from Ilir Meta and Sali. This is really a very serious appeal and it is not rhetoric. Protect your kids from Ilir Meta and Sali!
Thank you!
