Rama: "The diaspora is a story of the multiplication of the forces of the Albanian nation and the added value of Albania"
Prime Minister Edi Rama's speech at the 4th Diaspora Summit
Honorable and esteemed ladies and gentlemen,
Dear brothers and sisters of the Albanian diaspora, friends and guests!
It is a special privilege to be here before you today as the Prime Minister of Albania, but also a special pleasure to come here with you today as one voice among many voices that form the community of a nation much larger than its borders. That Albania does not end where its territory ends. Albania lives wherever Albanians maintain their language, their memory, their stubborn hope and their invincible sense of national belonging.
And today, when the world is more interconnected than ever and when the word, like never before, reaches from one continent to another in the blink of an eye, you are a living extension of Albania everywhere in the world. The spirit of the nation beyond geography, its proof that identity is not summed up in the frame of a map, but is expanded by the journeys of its people.
There was a time, not too long ago, when Albanians fled their homeland carrying their hearts like stones on their backs, taking with them the courage of those who have nothing to lose and the pain of separation from everything that connected them to this world.
But what history until yesterday called an inconsolable departure, time has transformed into an irreplaceable connection.
What once seemed like a gap has now become a bridge. Today, the Albanian Diaspora is no longer a story of flight, it is a story of the multiplication of the forces of the Albanian nation and the added value of Albania.
Amidst waves and daunting challenges, Albanians built lives, families, professional careers, and successful ventures, in countries that began to recognize them, not through stereotypes but through their usefulness, their resilience, and their nobility, while Albania remained a black hole in the imagination of others. And beyond your individual success stories, you carried something even more important; the invisible thread that connects us all to this land, a thread that no distance can break, a thread made of the language spoken at home, of the traditions that are kept alive, of the memories that are passed down from father and mother to daughter and son.
This thread is not nostalgia, it is our strategic asset, the great unifying force that the nation has and at the same time the challenge that Albania and Albanians have today, to maintain, preserve, and pass on from generation to generation in the face of the great dangers that threaten them in an increasingly interconnected world, their language in a world where the countries that succeed are those that understand and act with the awareness that their people, wherever they are, are part of a single ecosystem of knowledge and opportunities for growth through language.
My friends, this summit is not a ceremonial gathering, it is a declaration of high and shared goals; it is without a doubt and an embodiment of our conviction that the Albanian diaspora is not on the periphery of Albania's national life, but at its center. Albania today is no longer the country that asks the diaspora for memory and monetary indulgence. This country is a great site of transformation that invites the diaspora to participate; participation in investments, participation in innovation and academic life, participation in building the future of Albania.
As in any construction site, in the construction site of Albania 2030 in the European Union, there is dust, there is dirt, there is noise, sometimes deafening, but we only need to look back to the time when we began to think about the first diaspora summit to gain courage, strength, inspiration and to continue the colossal work we have begun.
So, this was above all a moment of reunion in a place full of reborn hope, but also full of open wounds.
It was a first step to summon the power of the diaspora and to feel stronger in the face of the steep climb we had to climb, towards the peak where today we are closer than ever before.
It was the beginning of an interrupted conversation between Albania and its sons across the sea and across the mountains. Today, we are in the phase of building what has been the axis of our centuries-old conversation, the path of the final connection with that side of the world where the sun rises from the west.
At the first summit, your first demand was the right to vote from outside the homeland, and so on at the second and so on at the third. It was a fundamental demand to be not only an emotional part of this nation, but also an active part of its decision-making.
Today you come here, having exercised that right in last year's elections, from a demanded right to an exercised right; from a voice that demanded to be heard to a voice that is now part of popular decision-making for the leadership of this country.
Back then, many of you were Albanians who often had to face prejudices about the name of your country. Today, you are proud wherever and whenever the name of our country is called to attention, because the name of Albania has undergone a profound transformation; from a synonym for evil in the eyes of others, Albania has become synonymous with the sun, nature and hospitable people.
From a country that was mentioned at best with suspicion and at worst with contempt, Albania today is a country that is mentioned at best with curiosity and at even better, with desire.
From a name that often had to be explained where it fell on the world map, today Albania is a name that speaks for itself in all the languages of the world.
Today Albania is much different than when we gathered at the first diaspora summit.
We started our journey with a Gross National Product of less than 10 billion euros; today the Gross National Product is 27 billion euros and by the end of this decade we aim to increase it to 35 billion euros.
We started our journey with a per capita income of less than 3 thousand euros per year and today we are over 11 thousand euros per year, our goal is to be over 15 thousand euros per year by 2030.
We started our journey with 2 million or so tourists, where even my predecessor in office counted himself as a tourist every time he returned from work trips abroad, and where every Albanian who went abroad, when he re-entered to return home, was counted as a tourist.
At that time, Albania had 300 - 400 million euros in foreign investments per year, today Albania has 12 million tourists and spent 1.6 billion euros in foreign investments per year.
Back then, when you left the borders of Albania, or when you asked for a service from Albania, you could not get it except by waiting for the holidays to return home and instead of resting all the days, you would spend an entire day in line to get a service. Today you receive almost all services, 95% of state services in any part of the world where you are, simply and only thanks to your citizenship and a click on your smartphone or computer.
Back then, when we first gathered, Albania was known worldwide and was branded by the European Union as the homeland of impunity, where the law acted only against the weak and where every strong person defied the law. Today, impunity is a myth of the past in Albania and today Albania is the country where no one is above the law and justice is independent as it has not been since the beginning of time, from 1912 until we willingly handed over to it the sword that belongs only to its hands to do equal justice to all and without sparing anyone.
Back then, Albania had the door of negotiations for membership in the European Union regularly closed. Today, we have opened all chapters of the accession negotiations with the European Union and we have done this in record time of only 11 months, because just like you when the door was closed in your face in those first steps on the roads of the world and when no one had the time, no respect, no trust, and therefore no attention to listen and understand how much you were worth, but you insisted, insisted, insisted and after going to dinner and wiping away the tears from the humiliation of the day, you returned in the morning to continue insisting in the waiting, being ready for the door when it opened. Albania also insisted, insisted, insisted and was ready the moment the door opened. And for this reason, it also opened the chapters of the accession negotiations faster than any other country on the path to membership before it.
Back then, when you came to the first summit, the European future was an aspiration that remained far away. Today, the European future is a table, where we sit together every day, face to face, we and the European Commission with the common ambition to close the negotiations by the end of 2027. Today, it no longer seems like a wishful message in the air, but it is a word that takes root like any everyday word. What Ismail Qemali said at the founding moment of our state: - “Albania will be made”. In the mouth of the father of independence, that sentence was not a description, it was a belief. A belief that passed through generations, through great ups and downs, tragic failures, inspiring resurrections. A belief that today, more than ever, has taken the concrete form of Albania's European statehood and the objective that is no longer imagined, but seen, touched with eyes closer than ever to seat Albania at the table of the European family, as an equal among equals in 2030.
Fan Noli reminded us that Albania cannot survive without its Albanians, and today, when Albanians are both inside and outside the borders of Albania, while Albania is on the final ascent towards the much-dreamed-of union with Europe, this word of the luminary of Albanianism takes on a special meaning and force.
Just as the sharp warning of another luminary, Faik Konica, takes on a special meaning and force, he advises us: – “that a nation cannot rely on illusions about itself, but on the ability to improve itself, constantly”. And this is precisely where the biggest change of this decade lies, where thanks to transformative reforms and the intense integration effort with the European Union, we have gone from an Albania that was trying to survive to an Albania that is trying to improve; from an Albania that sought to be internationally accepted amidst general distrust, to an Albania that is respected and trusted like never before in the international arena.
Albania today is no longer the Albania that many of you left behind. It is a country that changes every day, sometimes slowly, sometimes faster than we ourselves expected, but indisputably and irreversibly Albania moves only forward.
Albania 2030 in the European Union is not a political objective, it is a choice of civilization, it is the conclusion of a journey that many of you have already lived in your lives, integrating you into societies that represent the values that we aim to instill here in Albania at home and here lies a powerful alignment. You know what it means to live in systems that work, in a society where institutions serve citizens, where merit has a place and where the rule of law is not a word, but a way of life. Your experience is not outside of Albania's future, but is essential for it.
You know better than anyone that this path is not without challenges. What you have endured is an unforgettable lesson, which is also valuable for understanding what Albania has endured and must endure until the day it sits at the common table of the European family, because no great, profound and true transformation can be without enduring all the hardships.
There will undoubtedly be disappointments, there will undoubtedly be moments when it seems like nothing is worth it. There will undoubtedly be moments when progress may seem slow and doubts may arise, but no path to success is built through comfort, and nations are not built in moments of comfort.
They are built on the tension between what was and what should be. But the beauty today is what Albania can be, it is no longer a distant dream, but it is an open path, a visible path, a tangible path for everyone.
Among the many things I could bring here to the summit, I chose to bring a gesture, an act, a decision of the Albanian government that seems to me to have, in addition to its concreteness, also a symbolism. The mountains package for all those who have left their land in the mountains to seek a better life outside of Albania.
The mountains have always been outside the life and far from the developments of this country. The mountains have always been the place where Albanians have retreated to protect themselves, to hide from those who sought them to take them captive and assimilate them, but today the blessed day has come when the mountains can also become part of the sources of Albanian well-being.
Because today, for the first time in our history, we have two things that, until not many years ago, we did not have: we have Albania trusted by the world and Albanians around the world with trust in Albania.
We have the world coming through many visitors and exploring the mountains, and we have Albanians around the world who now see that Albania is no longer beautiful and attractive only to them, but it is also beautiful and attractive to those around them in the cities where they live. And that is why I tell Albanians who have a piece of land somewhere on a mountain, somewhere on a hill, who have an abandoned house of their grandfather or great-grandfather, to take over the Mountain Package and turn that land, turn that house, into a source of well-being, assuring everyone that what today's Albania, the Albania that attracts 12 million tourists a year, is able to do for them thanks to their investment and the support of the government, is that, from that new source of well-being, they will earn more at the end of the month than they earn working for others outside their homeland.
And this of the mountains of course applies to everyone. An educated, influentially connected and proud global Albanian community, a community that understands Albania and the world, a community that can serve as a bridge, not only between countries, but between ideas, between cultures, between opportunities is a community whose members, regardless of whether they decide to return to stay in Albania or stay wherever they are, turn their eyes to Albania, not only have much to do for Albania, but today they also have something to gain by working with Albania.
And this is why today is important, not because we are gathered, but because we are nurturing our relationship to best nourish Albania. From distance to proximity, from memory to commitment, from feelings to strategy.
And let's be clear. The future of Albania is not written only in Tirana. It is also written in Rome, in Athens, in London, in New York, in Berlin, in Zurich, in every place where Albanians live, work and dream. But without a doubt, the future of Albania is also written everywhere where Albanians live around the borders of Albania, starting with the other independent state of Albanians, Kosovo, and then continuing with the Albanians of North Macedonia, who, no one should forget, are a people who formed the state of the neighboring and friendly republic of North Macedonia, and continuing with the Albanians in Montenegro and elsewhere.
And on this occasion, I would like to thank the Foreign Minister, the First Deputy Prime Minister of Kosovo, my friend Glauk Konjufca, the Speaker of the Parliament of North Macedonia Afrim Gashi, my old and irreplaceable friend Ali Ahmeti, and without a doubt my indisputable, irreplaceable friend Dritan Abazovic for their presence.
And in closing, I want to say that I did not come here today to simply make a speech and deliver a message, but to make the repeated invitation that we continue to reconnect, not only emotionally, but actively.
Let us reconnect to see Albania, not as a country that the diaspora left behind, but as a country that is becoming a European state and that in its shaping needs everyone, both Albanians within and those outside its borders.
An invitation to be part of a great national project, which is bigger than any government, bigger than any political cycle, bigger than any single generation because it is as big as the legacy of all those from Gjergj Kastrioti to Ismail Qemali and on to the Albanian heroes, martyrs, and martyrs in all the lands where Albanians lived, live, give birth to children, and project the future, a legacy that definitely requires Albania and the Albanian nation at the common table of that family, where we are finally getting ready to be an inseparable part.
What does it mean, ultimately, to be an inseparable part of a family of peoples as a people, of a family of nations, as a nation because a people and a nation is not its government, but is the bearer of all the trusts that move it forward in the name of the future, but without a doubt also to never forget the debt to those who gave the past that meaning for which we all feel proud to say "we are Albanian".
Thank you very much!
Long live Albania!
Long live Kosovo!
Long live the Albanians wherever they are!
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