Albanian Government Council of Ministers

Address by Prime Minister Edi Rama at commemoration ceremony on the Martyrs’ Day in Albania, observed on May 5 every year:

Honourable participants;

Family members of the war heroes;

Representatives of the veterans’ associations and organizations working on volunteer basis to honour the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War of the Albanian people!

This year’s Martyr’s Day observed every May 5 has a special importance as it coincides with the 75th anniversary of the country’s liberation from the Nazi and Fascist occupiers and I would like to inform you that, under the leadership of the Deputy Prime Minister, work is underway to prepare whole framework of the events to honour the Anti-Fascist War and commemorate the 75th anniversary of the country’s liberation.

For us, the Anti-Fascists War has been and remains an unchangeable reference point. And I am proud just like everyone else belonging to our political family since the Socialist Party (SP) is the only post-communist regime party that has remained firm in meeting the patriotic and national obligation to honour the National Anti-Fascist War.

On the other hand, I want to clearly underline that there is a dividing line between War and post-war historiography. They are two different things and I would want everyone to never confuse what hails from the pure blood of Antifascist War martyrs, and what stems from the post-war bloodshed and persecution of innocent people from of a dictatorial regime. The two should be divided and they should help us to stay on the history’s right side, because what the Anti-Fascist War did is that it put Albania on the side of the victors, on the side of triumphant, while what ensued after war we can’t say it was the right side of the history.

Meanwhile, what we receive as a testament and a message from the ant-fascist war is what put Albania again on the path dreamed by idealists like Qemal Stafa and everyone else who sacrificed their own lives for the homeland’s liberation, the path towards a European Albania, where all citizens are equal before the law and where each and every one are given equal chances.

I am very pleased that we have all come together at this crucial moment for the country to reconfirm our spiritual, moral and political affiliation to all that source of inspiration for the young people who joined the war and kept an entire nation on the right side of history.

Out heroes’ last will is embodied in every randomly neglected necessity over the many years of Albania’s democratic transformations to build a working democratic system, where everyone is evaluated and rewarded according to the merit and job performance.

A very small reward is provided to the elderly one, the third generation and those who have sacrificed everything they could and have received very little compared to what they deserve in return.

But I believe I read the war heroes’ last will property when saying our duty and our mission is not to allow another generation of children born after the collapse of the communist regime pay the price for failure of consecutive governments, just like the 1990 generation did. We would have had a completely different situation for that generation by now should the previous governments had done their job properly and had faced challenges instead of shunning them and should they had worked to make the national interest prevail over the narrow political interest.

Sacrificing today means thinking about the today’s small children.

Refusing to take advantage of today’s opportunities means providing a lot more opportunities to the children in the future.

We are pretty aware that pensions are very low and of course we are aware that reward for what was said earlier here would have been fully deserved.  We are also certainly aware that salaries are not the ones we would have wished for and that people should have had a lot more and many things like these, but there is a clear and not so easy choice to make between saddling the country with a huge debt today in order to live better today and burden our children with this debt, or making more sacrifices today in order to make sure that the children of tomorrow do not pay the very hefty bill the children born in the nineties keep paying today. This is all.

I believe we can better talk about the martyrs’ testament by reading out the facts and by praising the efforts during an extremely process of great transformation, a process of extremely painful reforms while eying to the future and without thinking how to survive for the time being.

I am saying all these because I am convinced that we, the Socialist Party and our government have made and make the right choice every day, resisting the temptation to calm down and make everyone happy today, which is however impossible, but emphasizing the necessity for our children to live in an Albania that is much closer to what the young people dreamed about when they left home to join the war and fight and never returned home.

The reforms we have launched have not been easy at all. They do not yield immediate results, but I am sure that such reforms have laid the very foundation on which the different Albania is being increasingly built in spite of the legitimate needs to have more today and despite the all mud that is being thrown on daily basis.

In a beautiful coincidence, our challenge to open the formal EU membership negotiations coincide with the 75th anniversary of Albania’s liberation and I wish with all my heart that this long endeavour indeed materializes, although, unfortunately, we haven’t been all united in this national mission, but like in no other country aspiring to open the accession talks and today are in the process of negotiations, or are already EU members, an internal factor here has been attempting and is attempting every day to block opening of the negotiations just for narrow political interests.

Last year we received a positive recommendation from the European Commission on opening the negotiations, but the European Council decided that for internal reasons this topic be addressed next June. Meanwhile, the European Council and the European Commission last year again said that although the negotiations were not formally opened, the screening process was launched last autumn. De facto, despite those talking gibberish and nonsense to bend the citizens’ ears, Albania has embarked and is carrying out a technical process, which every country that have already launched talks have gone through.

June is nearing and we hope and believe that the European Commission will again recommend unconditional launch of the membership negotiations, which means in terms of the evaluation made by the European Commission we will gain what we are entitled to, the merit in fulfilling the homework. The recommendation is then forwarded to the European Council of the 28 member states that consider the recommendation at a political level and last year an overwhelming majority endorsed the recommendation and demanded that the negotiations open immediately, but certain other member states, given their electoral realities, called that the issue be considered after the European elections, due in May.

That’s quite enough to understand there is a direct link now between what a country does to make progress in the integration process and what other countries decide about this country, depending on their internal situation. Whoever asks for Albania to overcome this hurdle no matter what the respective governments of those countries think he doesn’t know what he is talking about.

It is important to understand that Albania would have been humble and disgraced if the European Commission –  the body that doesn’t makes political assessments, but instead it assesses how we have done our homework – would have voiced concerns. And of course we will do utmost to receive a positive decision from the European Commission, preferably this June, but surely and definitely within this year.

Why am I saying that surely within this year and preferably in June? Because, actually, for a procedural reason related to the German parliament where the issue should be addressed, the time from the report’s release on May 25 to the Council meeting on 21 June is very short, and even at the more recent meeting in Berlin, despite whatever was said back here, we received the very positive message of Germany’s evaluation of everything we have done and the readiness to consider this issue by shunning the deadline due to procedure.

However, having said all these, one thing should be clearly stated; whatever we do is not because Brussels, Berlin, Paris or whole Europe asks us to do. We do all these for the future of this country and the future of our children.

We are implementing the justice reform because the rest of the world is asking us to do so. We are carrying out justice reform, because the people of this country deserve a fair justice system, with everyone being treated equally before the law and because our children deserve to inherit an Albania and a system where justice and the right cannot be sold and bought by corrupt judges and prosecutors and make sure that everyone, from the highest-level state official to the most ordinary citizen, be all treated equally before the law and the justice system. This is being done for Albania. This is being done for our children.

Whole process, the reform efforts we have embarked on today are all reforms, efforts and work to build a better Albania, where everyone has his own place and where everyone receives what they are entitled to receive according to a merit-based system. It is a tough bet we have placed on and of course if we are to look back and think how would have been Albania today should all reforms we have launched were to be launched many years ago. We would definitely had have a much better Albania today, just because we are exactly working and striving every day being convinced that not everything we do today would yield results exactly today.

I would also like to shortly comment on a concern that was voiced here too. I want to make it clear that I would host a ceremony to honor Mit’had Frasheri exactly in the same way I did months ago. I am in no dilemma about it. I am in no dilemma about the line clearly dividing the patriots from the Nazi collaborators, but because I don’t believe in the history written by the victors. I believe in the indispensability that we overcome that history by never falling into the trap of any rehabilitation of Fascist and Nazi collaborators, and by not allowing what was rightly stated here that reputation of none of those who took up arms to fight the Nazis and the fascists during World War II is harmed in the name of researches on the communism crimes.

In this aspect, my position is clear and firm. How and what happened in view of the liberation war until November 29, 1944, can never be object of study of an institute that is paid on Albanian taxpayers’ money. What followed has been the object of study of that institute and it is up to the Assembly of Albania to make all the necessary assessments in terms of law implementation, benefits or the damage caused by such an institute.

I believe it is needless to explain the “why” of all reasons I have directly and very sincerely provided about that ceremony, but allow me to tell you something.  We wouldn’t properly evaluate the anti-fascist war and the blood of our martyrs if we saddle with responsibility whoever at a different position, but eyeing the very same thing, that is the country’s liberation from the foreign invaders. The dividing line is then clear unequivocally. We the Socialists have never been and we will never be ready to turn a blind eye to any actions of collaborationism and any collaborationists, who do not deserve our commemorations and honours. Yet the truth is a bit more complex when it comes to certain figures and certain issues and it would be wise to distinguish among them as much as we can so that no evil and viciousness the communist regime included in the history written by the victors is passed down to the future generations.

Thank you very much!

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