Address by Prime Minister Edi Rama at meeting of the Socialist Party’s parliamentary group:

 

Honourable lawmakers and cabinet members!

Today, I would like to share with you and the public our latest parliamentary initiative on a set of significant changes to the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Albania.

The amendments are an outcome of governing experience in several sectors and a result of certain public issues of no little concern, the careful heeding concerns voiced by certain interest groups, as well as careful examination of the best European practices in addressing the issues included in this initiative.

I would like to emphasize from the outset that the initiative is open to further improvements during the discussions in the parliamentary committees, while each cabinet member according the area of responsibility they are assigned should host public consultation meetings with respective interest groups to discuss certain aspects of the draft-initiative in order to endorse a final project before it is forwarded for approval at the parliament’s plenary session.

However, prior to highlighting the initiative’s main issues, I would like to briefly comment on the most recent Franco-German Berlin Summit.

Never before have I seen such a disinformation and a scandalous political and media abuse of an international political event I have participated in rather than the whole viciousness and nonsense that accompanied and ensued on the Albanian media reports both in Tirana and Prishtina about the Summit.

The Summit had nothing to do with Albania’s or North Macedonia’s membership negotiations with the European Union. The Summit neither focused on the issues of European integration of the Western Balkans.

The wording of Summit declaration, which was provided in advance as a draft by the German and French hosts so that we could express our opinions, included not a single word on the EU enlargement issue, because the Summit theme was the regional cooperation and the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia.

At the same time, prior to the Summit, Chancellor Merkel held bilateral meetings with me and Prime Minister Zaev to talk, as it actually happened, about the issue of opening the EU membership negotiations with our two countries, but, just like it has always been the case ahead of Germany’s decisions either on our country’s bid to gain the candidate status few years ago, or on opening the accession talks, I didn’t go to the meeting at the Chancellor’s office to be informed about Germany’s decision, because it is universally known that Germany’s decision-making goes through the Bundestag and the German Chancellor never says the final word ahead of the European Commission’s report and the respective recommendation.

So the Tirana’s mouthpieces that rumbled and announced the calamity and augured ill for the supposed failure of Albania’s bid to launch the EU membership negotiations while the Summit had yet to begin were merely an extreme expression of despair of all those who are seeking to pull Albania along towards their own political abyss at any cost.

The extreme effort to show off the derailed opposition’s trash, telling Albanian citizens that the negotiations won’t open as long as we run the government and as long as I head the government is lamentable, heinous and disgraceful, because there could be no reasonable Albanian who does not understand that for some years now European decision-making on the countries in our region, including Albania is made not just on what we do, but it fortunately it now increasingly depends on what happens in the domestic politics of some countries threatened by the rise of the Eurosceptic parties.

What should Kosovo do more in order to benefit the visa-liberalization, the most exemplary example because nobody can now tell Kosovo that it has failed to meet the required criteria. None of the countries oppose visa liberalization, yet they do not include it on the agenda of discussions because they all know that governments of certain EU member states fear the Eurosceptic forces in their countries should they grant Kosovo what it is legally entitled to. Certain media here even wrote that President Macron had blamed Albania for not lifting the visa regime for Kosovo.

This is absolutely not true!

France’s President openly stated that those forces misuse every issue, including the issue of asylum seekers from thousands of nationals from the non-EU member states as an argument to frighten the electorate and grow up as political forces by sowing such fear.

Everyone shamelessly rushed to blame our government on behalf of the French President, who, on the contrary, has constantly praised common efforts to cut the number of Albanian asylum seekers by 40% last year.

However, we can do nothing! Woe to this country for this desperate politicians and their zealous media that slander and invent everything just to alienate the citizens. Meanwhile, who haven’t done wonders, but it is for sure that we have led Albania to the European Union’s anteroom, or on the eve of the accession negotiations. Just like it is for sure that Albania today enjoys best relations of friendship with Germany and France, the two countries, I am deeply confident, will not shut the door to this anteroom this year.

Chancellor Merkel, as well as Germany’s SPD leader Andrea Nahles, and the deputy chairman of her CDU parliamentary group, who clearly stated in a later interview, extended us a warm and respectful welcome and have praised Albania’s progress in the EU integration process.

Not only did they not tell us that the door has been shut to Albania, instead they assured us of their very positive disposition to recognize Albania’s merit by formalizing the opening of negotiations. I use the term “formalization” given the many speculations and nonsense that have been said regarding how we treated last year’s approach to the negotiations for two very simple reasons, because on the one hand, last year, not us, but the European Council wrote in black and white that a positive decision will be made in June, while the intergovernmental conference will be held by end of year, and that Albania, just because it had met all the requirements, was allowed to launch a process that otherwise traditionally starts when negotiations are formally launched.

We have already launched this process and it has been carried out according to all requirements.

The only problem concerning our German friends is the time the procedure takes to be discussed in the Bundestag. The time starting from the date when the EC recommendation is issued by end of May and the day when the European Council makes its decision on June 21 is extremely short.

There is another detail to everyone who wishes to understand why the European Commission decided this year to release its annual report by end of May: in order not to release it during the European Parliament election so that the expected positive recommendation doesn’t become a cannon fodder in the electoral campaign in those countries where the problem is obviously neither the relationship of respect and friendship with Albania, nor Albania’s factual progress, but the internal political and electoral dynamics.

That’s why the German side has hinted September as a potential date, but they have never suggested refusal to open the membership negotiations for reasons that have to do with Albania.

As to France, I would like to emphasize that we should patiently wait for the outcome of the European elections in May in order to receive then the required attention from the President of France and the French government at a time when France’s attitude will be formulated based on the European Commission’s report and recommendation.

We would have been truly in a difficult position should we and Albania would have failed to do its home works and should the Commission, which makes factual evaluations and not political or electoral ones just like the member states do, wouldn’t recommend again this year the unconditional opening of the accession negotiations.

That heinous game in the foreign language has been also put to an end since there is nobody in Europe to trust those who have tarnished the country’s image over these years.

They thought they would confuse and shock Europe and the United States of America by relinquishing their mandates in parliament and by putting on the vests of Albania’s destabilizers on behalf of the so-called fight against their country’s “narco government.” However, in turn they have met strong refusal for this political charade unprecedented in the history of democratic countries. If they continue this way, they would face both refusal and total isolation from the rest of the democratic world.

They think they will succeed in drumming up support and convince people to rise and destroy and set the country’s institutions on fire, hoping that by doing so they would produce martyrs of their imaginary revolution as a result of “the disproportional reaction and actions” from the State Police and the Republican Guard, who used to open fire against demonstrators when the today’s opposition controlled the government. Yet they found only a handful of blind militants, who have been jailed for the sake of their party, and received and will continue to receive only a proportional reaction from the police and nothing more and nothing less.

They are running away with the idea that they would succeed in efforts to stop Albania holding the local polls on the date set in compliance with the Constitution of this Republic, because they still obviously think they would fool people and find willing ones to go to jail after violating the ballot boxes.

Following the tirade of the nonsense and speculations that were made on the occasion of the Berlin Summit, it was also said that our international friends would ask me to postpone the election date, or they would warn me about the elections without the participation of the losers, who have abandoned the process not to face us with the vote on June 30. I want to tell them that no such a demand and not a single word has been said about this. Zero!

In a democracy, nobody is forced to participate in elections. Everyone is free to decide whether to participate or not in the polls and it is neither the government’s duty to force political parties to enter elections, nor the ruling majority’ right to postpone the elections beyond the Constitutional deadlines, just because certain political parties do not wish to participate in the elections.

The Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Albania includes a special chapter for any parties or individuals who think they have the right to violate law and the Constitution by becoming arsonists o the elections. It is important that we inform the public over that chapter’s content constantly so that we warn everyone – I don’t mean the former lawmakers as they have voted every article of that chapter and they know quite well the consequences of any criminal actions against the elections – but to warn everyone who falls prey to their ignorance by following the crowd on the election day. No changes to the Criminal Procedure Code are needed in this aspect, because, as we have backed it when the DP was a ruling majority and headed the government, the Code constitutes a solid legal basis to protect the electoral process from any of the perpetrators.

Meanwhile, yes, the Criminal Procedure Code needs to change in other important aspects regarding progress of the country’s life and safeguarding the freedoms and rights of every citizen of the Republic of Albania starting with the food safety. The truth is that significant progress has been made in ensuring food safety. Our agricultural products, unlike what is often unfairly said, or what sometimes irresponsibly is shown on television screens to publish sensational stories, are completely healthy.

Suffice it to say that Albania’s agricultural exports to EU member states were estimated at around 300 000 tons in 2018 and not a single lorry has been denied entry on European food safety concerns. However, unfortunately there are individuals and companies that commit crimes against human health just to maximize their profits. They have escaped justice for over 30 years, facing only minor fines, but such situation will no longer be tolerated and will not continue anymore. These forces of evil in our society, who dare to threaten our children’s health and those who live and consume food in this country, should be exacted the most exemplary punishment.

On the other hand, violence is a constant phenomenon that has been worrying the people in the line of duty. Sadly, the political parties instead of fighting violence primarily through the power of their example, they have incited it, creating an ineffective climate. The indispensability for a definite legal response to violence against elected officials and public officials, starting from the parliament hall to every square meter of the Republic of Albania; violence against police officers, including resisting policemen violently or attacking them; violence against doctors and health personnel; violence in sports especially in football pitches, will all unequivocally addressed by the new package of amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code.

The current Code, as all these phenomena clearly show even compared to the EU member states, fail to sufficiently ensure indispensable reaction to violent actions.

The respective provisions on punishing such phenomena are either deficient, or stipulate no severely enough penalties. The need for changes to the Criminal Procedure Code on the copyright protection for example is a result of a necessary reflection of insufficient developments in this respect over the past 30 years. The Code contains a number of completely insufficient provisions on the intellectual property protection or reproduction of copyrighted works without authorization. Yet these provisions are incomplete and the penalties imposed for copyright infringement have nothing to with the desperate need for the rule of law in this area if we are to compare the penalties exacted in the EU member states, let alone the United States of America, for infringing the copyright.

We have suspended, or more precisely, we have banned gambling, but we still need to intervene and legally punish any attempts to engage in illicit gambling and sports betting in the future.

Regarding the public order, interventions are needed, because the citizens’ complaints for more than a quarter of a century on failure to respect the legislation’s provisions on acoustic pollution, on which the Criminal Procedure Codes of the developed countries contain clear provisions when permitted norms of acoustic pollution in public spaces are violated.

The new package includes stiffer penalties for illegal possession of firearms and explosive devices, and actions that seek to block traffic and the movement of public transport vehicles, rail, maritime and air transport. It is impossible to accept unduly interfere and blocking the free movement of traffic and people, or deliberate and systematic blocking of the free movement of people and vehicles. Nobody accepts it and Albania has no reason to accept it.

On the other hand, several changes and significant progress has been made in the transposition of the European directive to protect the environment through the criminal law. The 2016 Progress Report put emphasis on the fact that the directive aiming to ensure the protection of the environment through criminal law has yet to be transposed, meaning that the legislation is incomplete and that’s why the new package defines the criminal offences committed both by nature or legal persons either deliberately or negligently, which run counter to the specific environmental legislation that we have already adopted, as well as a variety of aspects of the whole life and environmental protection framework.

The today’s problematic in implementing and enforcing the environmental protection legislation to date has shown that the environment cannot be protected through the administrative legislation alone and therefore the legislation needs to complete and the criminal offences and the environmental crime and the respective sanctions as stipulated by the Criminal Procedure Code to ensure consistence between the legal requirements and the provisions of the Criminal Code, the latter should reflect these requirements of European environmental legislation. Intense work has been done by a group of relevant committee heads, cabinet members and experts, but as I said, the package is open to further improvements.

The package also addresses the medical negligence and medical malpractice, which when resulting in risks to patients’ lives cannot go unreported as nothing has happened. Whereas when medical malpractice results in death of the patient, the responsible individuals cannot escape unpunished.

However, on the other hand, the package also addressed the long-time request from the community on decriminalization of medical negligence in relation to the consequences. It is a European standard and it best balances both the need to act legally by resorting to penalties and prosecution when medical negligence results in death of a patient because of objectively proven causes, or on the other hand the need to recognize the inevitable disasters in an activity where not always, not all ends successfully, such as the treatment, the operation of the disease.

I briefly mentioned the stiffer penalties for illegal gambling and it is necessary to address also the plea of many respected organizations working for the protection of animal rights and protection of animals from exploitation for profitable purposes or animal exploitation for pleasure that some people enjoy by violating animals. We have made great progress in protecting fauna from hunting, but it is nevertheless necessary that the Criminal Code, as well as all experiences and needs clearly emerge in an experience process and careful comparisons with other countries, be clearly addressed damages caused to protected species of fauna and flora. There is a special part for the protected areas, as there is a need to clearly state and recall that with this intervention, the sport of assaulting sportsmen, coaches, and referees is a crime punishable by imprisonment.

Crossing the white line of the football pitches during a match will be considered a red line and violation of the law and anyone who needs to hear more arguments, I can state that the current penalties stipulated by the Criminal Procedure Code of Albania are overly lenient compared to the penalties exacted in a country that is a champion of human rights and freedom, like Great Britain is, where violence in sports and hooliganism faced a package of extreme punishments, leading to transformation of the English football stadiums from arenas of violence into the planet’s most exemplary arenas, where one can’t distinguish between the public on a football match and the audience in an opera show.

The violent actions in sports threaten not only those affected by it, but gravely violate whole society and severely damage process of children’s education through horrendous images due to such heinous actions.

Once again, concluding I would like to point out several articles on the food safety, because this is a major challenge facing the entire society.

The import, production, storage, sale, or circulation in one way or another of food, beverages, other food products, drugs, or the use of chemicals, materials and additional substances in production and processing of food products and beverages is punishable by imprisonment. The level of sentence, although I personally do not agree as I think it is too lenient, should become subject to discussions in the Committee together with the interest groups, but when such an offence is committed in collaboration more than once or when such a felony has resulted in risks to consumers’ lives, the sentence will be up to ten years in prison.

The same applies to the food products with an expired shelf life and expiration date. It is a serious problem. We know it quite well, since it is an ongoing game for over 30 years as expiration date of the commodities is violated. No family, not a single child owes this government, this parliamentary majority and political establishment to sit, look on and do nothing. A sentence to ten years in jail is envisaged for this offence.

Food fraud  and product counterfeiting is also considered criminal offenses. Food stamp fraud, replacement or removal of the food safety stamps imprinted by the state bodies and agencies in the field of food safety, which is yet another widely played game, is stipulated a criminal offense too. I believe that by addressing such a big and so vital problem, at the same time so threatening to the general psychology of society, being confident that this is not the case about all food products in Albania, but a small part of them, however, sufficiently serious to inflict damages and bring about consequences, we simply and just fulfil a commitment as a result of reflecting on a 30-year-old failed experience to turn all trade activity with food products into an intangible safe area for people’s health. Thanking each and every one of you and all those who have been working on this package, and thanking in advance everyone else who will contribute to finalizing the work on the package, and being convinced that there are still details and elements that can improve further reminding that in this process, besides the discussions that will be made in the commissions and apart from the parliamentary process that the commissions have a duty to perform based on all parameters of the necessary discussions, it is important that the cabinet members in the relevant sectors to present the part of the sector-related package, while the Justice Minister, who has been part of the lead working group on the package, will coordinate all this interaction so that without wasting more time, by recording this draft in the parliamentary procedure, we materialize and vote it in full at the plenary session, giving an adequate answer, I believe, to all the concerns created by our experience and consistently raised by the people, according to the cases and the groups of their interest, but also from the public as a whole.

Thank you very much!