By Edi Rama/ Towards Albania 2030.

2024-03-17 18:38:00, Opinione CNA

Edi Rama

The speech of the Prime Minister, at the same time the President of SPSH Edi Rama at the National Assembly of the Socialist Party

Dear National Assembly,

Chairman, I want to congratulate everyone for the active involvement, the serious commitment in the entire territory of Albania and the work done so far, for the renewal of all the cells of the organism of our party, in this process of its re-energization, which now it has affected every socialist organization, from Thethi to Konispol, from Doda Castle to Mallakastra Hekal, passing through every town and village of our country.

I want to congratulate the General Secretary, Blendi Klos, for the innovation of the engineering of this process, the persistent introduction of the new digital information mechanism day by day and the positive spirit of competition between the circles to exceed the basic objectives of the new memberships.

Today, a total of 29,225 new memberships are counted in the digital register of socialist membership!

I invite you to welcome with a special round of applause all the new members of the Socialist Party.

The number of new memberships is significant for all of us, not to stop here, but to see in the new overview of the membership of each district the great potential of increasing our political strength, its extension in every district of residence, from the center to the edges of each municipality and the deepening of its influence in the hearts and minds of Albanians. So let's never stop here, but set two new objectives today:

-50 thousand new members until our Electoral Congress in June of this year, that is, 20 thousand or so added to those who have joined so far. And you have all seen that I have heard from many that with great readiness and with great ease the objectives have been exceeded just for a simple reason because we did not wait for the people to come to us, but we went to them.

- Second, the revision of the composition of each socialist organization, with the aim of harmonizing the composition of each organization with the political and social profile of the area covered by the socialist organization.

Men and women, of any age, boys and girls, individuals with the respective provincial origins of the area and representative profiles of social categories and interest groups in the respective area. The more represented the area is in the composition of the organization, the stronger will be the connection of the Socialist Party with that area.

The more we do, in this process of re-energization, to overcome the old boundaries of the left-right faction in an area, opening up the party to groups and individuals until yesterday bound by force of habit to our crushed political opponents, the more more The Socialist Party will embody the power of unity for Albania, for the community, for the ordinary people of this country, who, as they showed us best, Shkodra, Kamza, Devolli or little Klos, are today more open to chose the best offer, abandoning the old trench of blind party favoritism.

But we must be clear, this party is not our goal in itself, it is our means to implement the common goals for Albania, the Albanian people, the ordinary people of this country, in every part of it. And let's not for a moment lose sight of the fact that, while we are the best offer today, the continuous improvement of our offer to the country and the people should be our ambition quite independent of the low level of other competing offers. in the political space.

We are not in this space simply to get more votes than others, but to take on more responsibility for Albania and more solutions for Albanians. That's why we need a stronger and more comprehensive Socialist Party at every step; more open and representative; older with experience and younger with new blood.

In these years, we have gone through the nightmares of the earthquake and the pandemic, the impact of the war in Ukraine on the price of energy and inflation in all of Europe, without forgetting the daily stress of overcoming the countless potholes and high thorns of the past. But we have managed not only to survive, with a resistance praised even by the International Monetary Fund itself, the blows from God or from the big and small devils on earth, but also to climb this higher country, putting the economy on the tracks of sustainable progress, freeing justice from the 100-year-old clutches of the executive power, placing Albania in the best international position in its history.

We have opened a new door for Albania today, which will release a new impetus for our nation, to climb further towards the top where we want to see this country, at the end of this decisive decade, as a place of pride for every Albanian in the beautiful Mediterranean and ready to become an equal member of the European Union.

But all this progress so far, as meaningful as it is insufficient, requires a strong guarantee to turn into a complete transformation without return for Albania.

And this guarantee is one and only:

A more unifying and inclusive Socialist Party for Albanians without distinction.

A big political family, the lady to clearly read the internal and external challenges of the country. Stronger to address these challenges directly and without wasting precious time. More determined to self-correct along the way and more aware of its irreplaceable role in the turbulent times we live in today's world.

How should we approach these necessities, to overcome Albania's challenges?

What should we, the Socialist Party, do so that the new gate that we have opened on Albania's road, frees all the ideas, decisions, appropriate human energies and still unused potentials of the country, to give new powers to this nation?

How can we make the members of our political family more aware of their role in this historic mission of the Socialist Party in the first place?

From how we will answer these questions, again from how seriously we will make these questions an integral part of our daily concerns, trying to give them every day a proper part of the answer no short, arduous and patient, will also depend on the judgment that history will reserve for us for this critical phase of the country's development.

But even more important than that, how we will value it and how we will address it in the depth of the challenges of this new phase that Albania has entered, as well as the extraordinary weight of our responsibility in this phase, will depend on which it will be Albania's place in the region and in Europe when Albanians enter the next decade of this second century of our country's independence.

If we properly grasp this transformative moment and move decisively with clarity towards the objectives before us, then we can close the gap between our potential and our realisations.

Discussing further, I want to focus today on the impact that we socialists must create on the country, while separately, we must share together further and in the following weeks, opinions on deepening the process of re-energizing the Socialist Party, in terms of political and organizational.

For the country, this is a moment when the reforms undertaken are undoubtedly yielding results, in the economy, justice and in every sector.

But this is precisely the moment not to stop, to increase the speed, encouraging a new wave of reforms in the function of good governance, law enforcement and anti-corruption. Of course, this goes in line with the requirements of the new phase of European integration, membership talks, and even better, but this is nevertheless a necessity of this new phase of the country as a whole.

I am glad that as far as I understand, the Assembly will stop being the madness of the last months and at least the floor will be restored instead of its violation, which hit the image of the parliament, which even without the last violation was not so good.

Perhaps the return of the word will create space to communicate, and not just to speak for themselves, but in any case our parliamentary majority should put a draft resolution on the table of the Laws Committee to encourage a great public debate, regarding the national challenges of EU membership and the reforms and further measures that Albania should undertake, without wasting time.

I spoke not without purpose about national challenges in the plural, because the membership talks are not just for the government, but for the three constitutional powers in Albania and a full 147 institutions, among which a significant number of independent institutions that interact directly with the Commission EUROPEAN

Of course, the entire Great Debate cannot have its own gravity except in the Parliament of Albania and the latest development for the return of the parliament to normality, as well as the creation by the Laws Commission of a mechanism that enables the open confrontation of equal, between the majority and the minority, for undertaking legal initiatives beyond the votes available to the Socialist Party, should go in the right direction for Albania in its confrontation as a state, not just as a government, with the national challenges of the membership process.

There was talk these days about bargains, agreements with Non Grata to the detriment of justice and our recognition of the gentleman on the balcony as the leader of the Democratic Party, just as it has been talked about up and down social media portals, for the fear of socialists from Spak and for secret plans to bring the new justice majority under control.

All of them are lies, which show how difficult it is for a part of our Albanian community, inspired by those who listen and follow in politics, in the media or in the mexelis of social networks, to understand or accept that the Socialist Party of this generation, is writing a new chapter in the history of relations between political power and justice. With full awareness, true patriotism and the highest sense of responsibility for Albania of the next generation. It's awfully simple to understand: If we didn't want justice freed from the shackles of 100-odd years of executive power, we'd have made all the necessary bargains to prevent this time from coming, when for the first time in the history of the Albanian state, individuals from the highest levels of political power are investigated, judged, and punished. Some say that the Americans did it, we didn't do it, but the Americans were here before, they are also there in other NATO or pro-NATO countries in the region.

Why was Albania not still today, like the other countries in the region, where three of them have opened negotiations with the EU before us and none of them has yet undertaken the reform, deep in justice, that they are asked by the EU to do taking Albania as an example? The answer is very simple as well:

Because in Albania there is a party that had Justice Reform in its program, since it was in the opposition, that won the elections by promising Justice Reform and that carried out Justice Reform, because it is a party that says what it does and does what it says, which is called the Socialist Party of Albania!

So not only is there no chance for this party to return from the flag bearer of the Justice Reform, to its flag bearer, but this party will be the determined guarantor, at any price, of the new justice, unconditionally supporting the institutions of justice in the fight against corruption left and right, up and down, and keeping the hands of majority power away from the independent affairs of justice.

Whoever preaches the opposite, is either in such trouble, that he seeks to explain with the tale of political persecution, putting himself before justice, or is so angry with the Socialist Party, and especially with me personally, because we win every time they confront us, how can you not accept that this party is making history with the Reform in Justice, and with the European statehood of Albania in general and that is why it is elected, and will continue to be elected without hesitation, by the absolute majority of Albanians.

It was then clearly seen that there was no bargain, no agreement between anyone for anything, except for the re-acceptance of the agreement written in the Constitution by those who tried to take the parliament hostage, losing logic in search of the impossible.

That agreement says that the majority governs and the minority is the opposition, with rights and duties defined in laws and democratic customs and the history of these ten and a half years, including the so-called opposition action of the last months, with muscular threats and flaming , should teach everyone once and for all, that what you can't get from free elections, you can't get from the Socialist Party with any form of abuse of freedom.

Political opponents are neither chosen by us, nor can we change them, we can only respect the rights given to them by the Constitution and the law, therefore those two investigative commissions that were agreed to be voted within the framework defined by The Constitutional Court, we could have voted for them long ago, if they had not been blindly searched outside that framework.

We know, they know, big and small who follow our political life from any distance, that their problem was not the investigative commissions, as I believe they all know that for a long time now I personally spared them, as I have not I have never before had the words and time to comment on their exploits and exploits.

That's why even today I won't take time or waste any more words to explain how they are in trouble, why they went off the rails and why they got back on the rails or who is who in that broken soup, where everyone vomits in the mejlis the spoons they have swallowed for years feeding each other.

This new time of Albania, there is no time to waste with their problems with justice and with their lost seals, while we have the duty to be at the height of this time, to let justice do its work with every crooked tree in our ranks - thank you that we made it to this day - and do our big and small jobs, to govern better in every direction and sector, guaranteeing the irreversibility of progress, further modernizing the state to expand further the horizon of opportunities for Albanians and further narrowing the scope of corruption, as well as encouraging more competition and meritocracy, to step by step strengthen the human capital of Albania in the public and private sector.

These strategic objectives must be put at the service, with dedication and persistence, of the Socialist Party with its continuous opening, beyond the old party borders in every territory, creating the conditions and mechanisms to include in its bosom every Albanian. , of every age and party background, in every city and village, all the ordinary people of this country who want to see Albania the pride of their children.

The meaningful examples of Shkodra and Kamza, where the Socialist Party received the support of over 60% of voters, should serve as inspiration and motivation for us to understand that the ordinary people of this country today are much more open than yesterday. when they have to choose between the clear possibilities of progress and the old party trench. Shkodra, Kamza and other realities branded for endless years as forbidden areas to throw the dance, moving to the left, should teach us many things, but above all they should impress on our heads that when we socialists know to merge into one thing, leadership ability with humanity in communication with citizens, socialists and democrats without distinction, we are not just winners. We are unbeatable.

Nothing and no one but ourselves can prevent us from winning not the new elections and the ones after them, but from winning the new challenges for Albania, for which we need to win the elections as well.

Look at what we have achieved with tourism, in a country where, until a few years ago, you could not even find 10 people together, lest they take you for a fool, if you imagined that in January-February 2024 they would enter Albania 1 million foreign tourists. If this trend continues, then the 10 million annual tourists will become nearly 14 million this year. Once, in order to make 1 million, the previous government counted us as tourists, every time we entered Albania after going abroad. And those who count my charter trips today and scream about imaginary millions of euros spent (even though my travel expenses cost the prime minister less than those of my predecessor) when they were in government, imagine how many tourists they would have counted only with my comings and goings.

These days, Jared Kushner, a great American entrepreneur and son-in-law of former President Trump, publicly announced his ambition to invest in two major tourism projects in Albania!

Yes, those who until yesterday showed us Montenegro and Macedonia as unattainable examples of developments in tourism and foreign direct investments, today are talking about the danger that threatens Sazan from returning to a jewel in the golden crown of tourism in Mediterranean!

They rave about the danger of destroying an imaginary national park, a protected area that has never been protected except by Enver Hoxha's soldiers, who were waiting with binoculars for the landing of the Seventh American Fleet in Albania, and discover with the rule of three, that how the dark reason for the changes in the protected areas law came to light.

The shadow of the former American President and the provincial fear of his anger, - you remember what they said when he was chosen for me, but here I am today - prevents the most obstinate ones from joining these voices to release thunderbolts of accusations and slanders in this time, for me, the wicked son of Soros's money bag, who entered into a mega-corruption affair with the soul son of Soros' most sworn enemy!

Thank you, that the mud thrown on those who come from outside the borders of Albania, to contribute to Albania with foundations or investments, makes Albania look unfairly ridiculous in the eyes of the world, just as their accusations and slanders against them are ridiculous. !

But the truth that is important in the meantime, is not how unrelated these alarms are, about the danger that threatens Albanian nature from the changes in the law of protected areas or from the landing in Sazan of the most prestigious hotel company in the world, Aman Hotels&Resorts, which has built a dozen structures in UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Asia and the Middle East.

The truth that is important in the meantime is that Albania, the champion of tourism in the region in 2030, is not a slogan to feed the illusion of a bright tomorrow, but a geopolitical and economic project, which is being shaped with concrete plans and measures , which create the possible space for this historical development. As for the protection of the Albanian nature, it is the ordinary people of Albania themselves, who know better than anyone, who took it for protection and who destroyed the nature of our country, who preserves it and brings out its beauties day by day. of this country and who made it ugly and covered it with trash wherever possible the charming body of Albania.

We have neither hidden nor left it only in words, our strategic goal to build in Albania the sector of excellence with five stars of the new tourism industry. Today, only the five-star Spanish brand, Melia Group, has signed 18 contracts with various Albanian entrepreneurs for projects in the tourism sector. And the president of the group whom I had the chance to meet when he came to Albania a few days ago told me that they are ready to go up to 30 contracts because according to him Albania is the new rising star of tourism in the Mediterranean.

When we took office, there was not a single five-star sign in Albania, but it took a special legal package to support the arrival of five stars and several years of tiresome work for the Urban Renaissance, with all the mayors, a part of which are here in the hall, as well as tireless prayers up and down the world, to break the thick ice of the scandalous perception of Albania by hotel companies of excellence.

Meanwhile, those who were madly concerned only with the stars on the jackets of 50 old men at the martyrs' cemeteries, whether in the government or in the opposition, ignorant to the point of pain and evil to the point of greatness, told the people that we removed the yacht tax for the oligarchs . They were not and are not to blame, that they left Albania the only black hole of the Mediterranean without the tourism of sailing vessels, 400 of which, when they stop at a shore, bring more income to the economy of the respective country than 40 thousand tourists that come with a bag on their side.

Five-star excellence tourism brings well-paid employment, stimulates the chain of production and services within the country, transforms the image and increases international respect, and for Albania, where we will do our best not to get the stamp of an exclusive tourism destination massive, which has its advantages but also has its own risks and costs that turn into wounds, if there is a tourist industry with a diverse offer and in full balance with the protection of nature, this will be a development of national pride.

To those who say that you are selling the assets of the homeland to five oligarchs, you are selling Sazan to foreigners, and I know how many more, I say no, you are wrong, in Albania there are not five, but hundreds of local investors who have engaged with very ambitious new projects in tourism, not counting thousands of others who have built and are building tourist and agro-tourist hotel structures, and others who can't wait for us to ease the way in the mountainous areas, especially in the north of the country, to m Regarding property titles, they build in private properties and the number of Albanian owners who have benefited and are benefiting from the capitalization of their land is tens and tens of thousands.

We will not sell Sazan or any other state-owned area to any foreigner, someone else took all the state lands, including Sazan, to the world market for 1 euro and not a single one came to Albania. immersed in criminality, corruption, garbage, dust and ugliness everywhere you look and that made news in the world only for bad. Today, Albania is good news in all the world's media.

Wherever foreigners will invest in state-owned areas, to raise the five-star excellence sector in our new tourism industry, Albanians will be part through state shares. And we will ensure that the approved projects are examples worthy of the prestigious collection of the world's brilliant works in tourism, and for international architecture magazines, as is currently happening with the towers of Tirana, where, among other things, we will win in years and an attractive collection of architectural firms with international prestige, for tourists of architectural curiosities.

This news for Sazan is not the first request we have had. In recent years, there have been several interests and even project ideas that have been offered to us and we have rejected them, precisely because we are neither interested in making bargains for ourselves, nor ignorant enough to accept mediocre developments in the name of introducing capital big in tourism, which then turn into costs not only for nature, but also for the economy and for the image of the country, we are clear about what values ??we should bequeath to the generations with these developments and we are very committed that the beauties of Albania should not be harmed by them, on the contrary, they should turn into a source of economic growth and pride for Albanians.

There is no doubt that this is a tremendous challenge, and while others speak, we must work in parallel on many fronts, starting with a new, powerful, focused and decisive drive for faster growth in education. professional in Albania. With the normative act of June, we will take care to finance the completion with the best standards of the existing infrastructure of vocational education schools and boarding schools, while we will significantly increase the funding for professional training, in addition to some necessary legal measures that will to get big business involved willingly or unwillingly in funding the vital upskilling of the workforce.

Today our problem is not the creation of jobs, even today we are seeing that day by day the supply of jobs is moving towards the trend that we provoked with the highest wage increase ever, but today our problem is that this whole moment new for the growth of investments and for their diversification, to accompany it with a qualified workforce that is available for this growth and at the same time to make this growth a meaningful reason for many young men and women to return and work in Albania, where the account will turn out much better than you do when they work in a hotel, in a factory, or in a field for the account of a foreigner.

It was not without purpose that I stopped at tourism as a key factor for further economic progress, without wanting to extend myself with other directions of economic growth, because in tourism the progress made can be seen as in a mirror between yesterday and today from yesterday to today, the need to guarantee the further continuity of this progress, but also the difference like day and night between the SP as a governing force and all other parties as forces without a stamp.

Today, the near future is more promising than ever and I want to underline another direction, where we will focus strongly on the years towards Albania 2030.

The rebirth of the military industry. Our army is often the object of news and media chatter without blessings, for the extractions from the spread plan of degraded, unnecessary, meaningless assets and properties, which have remained like the bones on the ground of the corpse of the People's Army of Enver Hoxha, who will he was at war with the superpowers and all the military powers of the planet.

To my knowledge, the plan for that war has failed, and while I know the programs of all the parties in Albania, I don't know that any of them have a plan to open a war to the whole world.

There have been major abuses over the years, definitely, with the way those properties that were extracted from the proliferation plan were used, this is not even discussed, but it does not appear to me that their extraction itself has caused any mistakes for the mission of the army ours.

Just as it certainly does not occur to me that there are still degraded military properties and assets that will never be needed by a NATO military like ours and are the most meaningful example of a great sin that they are not put into service of the economy of tourism and agritourism, in the first place, but also at the service of other sectors, of education for example, but they stay like ghosts on top of the mountains and as close to our seas.

In a conversation I had with several mayors, not from our political force, Puka, Fushë-Arrëz, Memaliaj, deep areas, we also discussed this; phantom military units which the municipalities of the mountainous areas could very well turn into assets to seek back investments from the immigrants of these areas in the field of tourism or agro-tourism. The absurdity even reaches the point where, on behalf of NATO, an investment of strategic importance, around 200 million euros, is taken as a hostage by preventive seizure in Saranda's marina, which already had a development plan for the tourist marina in Zog's time. and it is part of our governing program, while for 2 or 3 years it has been blocked that the manner in which the contract was concluded is being investigated.

I don't want to comment, I never do, the reasons for that investigation, that's not my job, but you don't need a degree in law to understand that investigating how a state contract was concluded with a private enterprise, doesn't give you no right to block the investment of that venture, even more so to do it in the name of NATO and national security, making NATO laugh when it hears this story and interfering with the competence of another power independent, which is sovereign in its own decision-making for national security.

This is a blatant arbitrariness that could cost the Albanian state a lot if foreign investors were cynical enough to take it to Arbitration, but I bring it up here because of the fact that it stems from an arbitrariness that goes far beyond the horizon. of an investigator and relates to an old and wrong mindset about protection today and what we should do in the function of protection.

Today, we need to invest more in defense.

This is a commitment that we have taken as a NATO country, but this is also another historical moment for the created circumstances that impose on us to do this with the mentality and standards of NATO, opening the chapter of investments of large private companies in the modern military industry, as all NATO countries have done and as all countries that see defense as a priority do.

This will bring not only an increase in our defense capabilities, not only a reason to feel part of a community of a dignified country in this aspect as well, but also a new front of quality employment for our youth as well as an increase in the qualifications of our workforce, as we are doing with the Aviation Academy, which will be opened in the area of ??the new international airport of Vlora, with the support provided by ICAO, thanks to the lobbying of our Minister of Infrastructure and Energy, that made the agency choose Albania among several alternatives in Europe.

This of human resources, this of human capital, this of qualified labor forces is a topic that the Socialist Party as a whole and all its decision-making levels in particular must keep in daily consideration. When I say the Socialist Party as a whole, I mean that the opening of the Socialist Party must be accompanied by the final kicking of the mentality that membership in the party is to get a job in the state, which we have done for the sake of truth step by step, but something that we suffer from and above all, something that we are seen by some people as a force that prevents them from competing, that prevents them from getting what they deserve and that prevents them from seeing their children theirs, their educated sons and daughters, to be in an equal race.

No matter how much we say that this is not completely true, no matter how much we try to show figures and facts from recruitments in the public administration, in the first place, which are followed with attentive eyes by the European Union, by the European Commission and which is valued as a the very positive progress of Albania, this is not enough. This is a perception and we have to fight with this perception.

On the other hand, beyond perception, this is a need of Albania, this is a need of every institution, this is a need of every municipality, this is a need of every administrative unit of every municipality, where those who settle there, they who are there to be the first gate where our voters and citizens knock, they must radiate a different culture, they must radiate a different sense of responsibility, they must radiate not the fact that they are there as parasites because of the party's tesserae, but the fact that they are there as an embodiment of our ambition to give to the human forces in this country and to give our human capital the value it deserves because only in this way, we can increase and strengthen our human capital.

In closing, I want to touch on the other point, the guarantee of Albania's new international position, and in all the meetings I have had with socialist organizations, I have tried to explain that the Socialist Party is not here today to compete with those who are possible without starting at all, but it is here today to meet all these challenges and to meet, in the first place, the need to guarantee the irreversibility of progress in all directions, to guarantee modernization and the further economic and social development of the country, to guarantee, as I said, the growth of human capital and to guarantee that this new international position of Albania is not the result of a period of time of a governing political force, which then returns back to where it was and Albania become irrelevant again, as it was, but return to a consolidated profile of Albania in a new and consolidated mindset of all institutions, in relations with the world and in a structured approach to diplomacy itself ours and become a common part of being at the head of this country of any political force in the future and at this point it is very important that the work we have started, the new memberships, the re-energization of the organizations continue to continue with patience communication regarding the irreplaceable and historical role that the Socialist Party has today and consequently the weight that each of its members has to perform this role, starting from the members of the government, to the members of the parliament, to the members of the municipalities, to the members of the Assembly and so on.

Of course we are on the right path, of course we are taking the steps according to the plans we have, but if we want to achieve and this is the objective, that in 2030 Albania, among others, will be a ready country that fulfills all the criteria to be a member of the European Union, we must be measured, not with those who come behind us, in the sense that they want to catch us, but we must catch the peak that we have to climb and therefore, dear friends and friend, it is very important that we all do not forget for a single day, our objectives for Albania 2030 are very ambitious, therefore we need a Socialist Party, very ambitious!

Thank you!