Edi Rama: For us, Plan A, B and C is Europe

“Europe for us is our first free will choice in history. We've been under different empires. We had to live under different flags, but it wasn't our choice. We were forced to do this. We were forced to live in the Communist dictatorship as we were forced to belong to political communities that we did not choose. Europe is our first choice of free will. That's why we're stubbornly pushing forward and that's why we don't think about giving up, and we're not thinking about plan A, B and C. For Albania, Plan A, B and C is Europe”, Rama said.

The head of the Albanian government said Albania is small in the region, but if all countries join forces then they can be great and offer extraordinary opportunities. As for the EU integration process, Rama said Albania is in a strange situation to offer alone The EU because it has remained hostage to a dispute between the two countries.

And we are not so small. The space we can create can be much more appealing to large actors to view us as an extraordinary land of opportunity for them. All of us, we are in the process of integrating into the EU that we've learned is not an easy process and sometimes it's a neurotic process. As we speak, Albania is in a very strange situation, hostage to a deadlock between our neighbour, RMV and our friendly country, Bulgaria. It's the kind of situations that only The EU can create it and there is no book, experience and no prudent explanation for how it can be treated. How can a difference between two countries be held hostage? But that's what Donald Trump would say. We'll have to move forward, not lose patience and not lose passion for Europe”

As for the Adriatic-Ionian initiative, Rama said that “is something that adds to frequent and numerous development initiatives, peace and development, and in a period of time where there is opportunity to seek and ensure that they return to change. What is happening in Europe today, not far from here, Ukraine is an extraordinary lesson for all of us to continue and walk in the path of strengthening peace and cooperation to avoid in all ways falling into the traps of the past”.

Meanwhile, after showing that Albania will welcome the final of the Conference League, Rama took Albania's transformation as an example over the past decade.

I'd like to start with this, just to highlight the fact that this event was impossible to imagine just a few years ago. I'd like to add that the measure of our transformation in this corner of the world after we came out of the terrible experience of dictatorship reflects a lot the measure of our burden in history. The past has been less generous with us. And so the path to the future is harder. After saying this, I believe the transformation we've seen in our country and in all other countries over the last 30 years is unprecedented when it comes to depth and real influence on countries and people. We've come a long way and we have ahead especially for us Albanians, where history has assigned us or assigned us a difficult isolation with a prominent barbarian. However, the scale of transformation Albania has experienced during this decade is very large”, Rama said. /tvclean