In his remarks at Thursday’s plenary session of parliament, Prime Minister Edi Rama focused on the agreement on Butrint National Park, underlining that “the issue is actually an interesting topic to bring the dissimilarity between us and the Democratic Party representatives back into the public eye, as the opposition MPs who don’t know what they are talking about and the Socialist Party and the government that know what they are doing.”
“First of all, I would like to remind you of the fact that there is a living claimant who claims to be the rightful owner of Butrint as a family property under the property ownership right recognized by you when in office. You have recognized ownership of the property located at the Butrint ancient theatre. You have legally accepted the great-great-great-grandson of the ancestors who built the ancient theatre in their land in Butrint now lives in Albania. That’s you! “’ Rama said.
“No secret deal has been signed on National Butrint Park and it is up to us to decide what to do with Butrint after saving it from you.
The Albanian-American Foundation has been a very important contributor to the country’s entire development process for a long time now and it is a factor and a collaborator of the government, and not of today’s government only, but a collaborator of all administrations in Albania. You’re not accusing the Ministry of Culture, but the Albanian-American Foundation of allegedly signing a secret deal to build bars and restaurants inside Butrint park. This is a new agreement to go beyond that. Butrint will have many commercial activities.
Our partner is the Albanian-American Foundation. The Albanian-American Foundation has provided a great contribution to Albania. The Foundation doesn’t provide loans. The Albanian-American Foundation asks nothing, but partnership with the Albanian state.
As far as Butrint Park is concerned, we are shifting to a management model of the national parks that is applied everywhere throughout the developed world. This is how the national parks are managed in the developed world and as far as the document you read here is concerned, I can tell you that a team of leading international experts have been working on the project, which is designed to make sure that Butrint is a national park that would continue to enhance its attractive power and a park that will keep developing in terms of the excavations and archaeological research already underway there and as a park that will continue to serve as a space of know-how transfer from those who have amassed valuable experience to the younger researchers who take up this duty in the future.
In addition to that, Butrint Park will be the first site to be included on the map of carbon-free areas, so it is set to be a totally green area, not in terms of plants and vegetation, but in terms of all the indoor totally carbon-free activities.
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Prime Minister Edi Rama’s reply at parliament plenary session:
The language and the rhetoric always certainly trigger debate and conflict and it can’t be otherwise, because the problem always starts with the language. It is not a coincidence that the holy books always open with the verse: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
So everything starts with the word and we differ a lot from each other and the language is the main problem, because level of your language is a basic one, it is an extremely low level, and I am sorry for being immodest, but I and the Socialist MPs are more sophisticated when it comes to the language. Of course, I didn’t call any of you “a fool”. If I were to call someone “a fool”, this would certainly be insulting. I said stupidity is contagious within your herd or flock. And if you felt being sheep or whatever animal part of a flock even for a second, this is your problem and not mine.
If we were to examine the parliamentary language, it turns out that you wouldn’t enter parliament never. You would be banned from entering parliament, because you don’t merely utter words, but you use abusive and offensive words for which one could face criminal charges. So, if someone tells me I am a fool, I don’t mind it at all, but if someone calls me a criminal, this is of course a big deal.
In other words, you just demonstrate what I say and this is the reason why nobody votes for you. Do you understand?
First of all, the Albanian-American Foundation was not founded in 1993, but the Albanian-American Fund did and the two are totally different things.
The Albanian-American Foundation was founded in 2009, so the original initiative has changed. Second, you are accusing a Foundation, which is a non-profit foundation funded by the US government, and you are making allegations as if the Albanian-American Foundation is the Ministry of Culture when you were in office, which turned the castle in Lezha into a disco. This is your cultural heritage concept.
