Rama: Europe is not a treaty, currency or market, it is a civilization

2025-07-15 14:26:00, Politikë CNA

Rama: Europe is not a treaty, currency or market, it is a civilization

Edi Rama

Prime Minister Edi Rama has been an honorary guest of the Bavarian government to deliver the keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the "Herrenchiemsee Festspiele", where each year a guest addresses the theme of Europe.

In his speech, Rama emphasized that Europe has never been just a treaty or a currency, nor simply a parliament or a market, but has been and must remain a civilization.

Between the lines, Rama said that the Europe he dreams of is not one where everyone speaks the same language and does the same things, but it is a Europe where a Bavarian king who persistently pursues beauty can speak across the centuries to a modern-day Albanian prime minister and they can agree. It is a Europe where a forgotten effort by a Bavarian statesman can become the root of a present-day friendship.

Rama's full speech

To be here, on the island of Herrenchiemsee, under the arches of a palace that was born not of politics but of a dream — a dream of beauty, solitude, and transcendence — is to sense something greater than architecture, more enduring than stone. It is to embrace an idea that has become eternal. And to be invited here, before you, on this special occasion, is not just an honor, it is a rare privilege, one that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

King Ludwig II, the Bavarian sovereign who built this country, was called a madman. Mad because he spent his wealth not on an army but on Wagner. Not on conquests but on the perfection of beauty. Mad, in other words, because he chose the soul over the sword. Once, he said: “I want to remain an eternal enigma to myself and to others.” And so he became something else — the last great romantic of power. The man who ruled not by decree but by dreams.

Here we are today, at the heart of that dream, at a time when Europe, our common home, our collective heritage, is once again surrounded by the roar of arms, the fear of fragmentation and the temptation to forget what binds us together. Tonight, music invites us to remember. To remember that Europe has never been just a treaty or a currency, nor just a parliament or a market. Europe has been and must remain a civilization. A way of feeling the world. A way of believing, as Ludwig believed, that beauty has political weight, that art is not a luxury, but a way of life.

This festival is not just a cultural event. In its silent defiance, it is a gathering of resistance. Resistance to the cynicism that reduces Europe to bureaucracy. Resistance to the despair that sees culture as decor. Resistance to the noise that drowns out the human voice. We, in Albania, know the sound of silence. For decades, we lived behind the Iron Curtain that we built ourselves, cut off from the symphonies and sonatas that filled the concert halls of free Europe. And yet, even then, music found its way. A smuggled cassette, a banned score, a memory from a concert before the walls were erected.

And I remember, as a child, the first time I saw “Ludwig,” Luchino Visconti’s shocking masterpiece. Not in the cinema. Not even in color. But in black and white, through a small box with a screen, caught by an illegal antenna, made of clothesline, that defied the regime’s ban on foreign television. That film, that poetic leap deep into the soul of a king who loved deeply and beautifully, left a mark on me, not only as a viewer, but as a future citizen of a Europe that I had not yet seen and that, to be honest, I did not even imagine that I would see in my lifetime.

What about today? Today, Albanian musicians study in Munich and Berlin. Today, German musicians perform in Tirana. Now our children grow up without the dream of escaping, but of cooperating. This is no coincidence. This is Europe doing what it was created for: to unite through creation, to elevate through exchange. And how can I not remember here in Bavaria a courageous gesture from this land, which history has almost forgotten, but we have not. In 1984, when Albania was still closed to the world, Franz Josef Strauss, a major figure of Bavaria, came to Albania. He did not come with threats, but with offers. Not to flatter the savage regime, but to open a window for the Albanian people. He extended his hand to a country that did not know how to accept him. The regime said, “no”. History, fortunately, said, “wait”.

Today, that hand is still felt. Bavaria stood open when Albania was closed. Now Albania is open and grateful. That moment is valuable, because it proves that bridges are not built only when the passage is easy. Sometimes, they are built in silence, waiting for the other side to appear. Let me speak frankly: The Europe I dream of is not one where we all speak the same language or believe the same things. It is a Europe where a Bavarian king who pursues beauty can speak across the centuries to a modern-day Albanian prime minister and they can agree. It is a Europe where a forgotten effort by a Bavarian statesman can become the root of a present-day friendship.

To our hosts in Bavaria, I say a heartfelt thank you, not only for this invitation, but for the example you continue to set. Bavaria reminds us that economic power and cultural depth are not opposites — they are twins, that prosperity without poetry is empty, that power without memory is blind, that Europe without a soul is no longer Europe. And if we must rearm to defend the European soil, we must, at the same time, reinvent ourselves, to defend the soul of Europe.

Let me also thank your Prime Minister, Markus Söder, not only as a statesman of conviction and clarity, but as a friend. Albania values his voice, his vision for Bavaria and his respect for European diversity. And I, personally, appreciate the warmth and understanding that your Prime Minister has shown, which, believe me, are not as common as they should be in the high circles of our continent. Let the music we will hear tonight do what speeches cannot, and let the beauty of this palace add what words cannot. Let it carry the spirit of Europe, what Ludwig heard, when others heard nothing. What we must defend not only in treaties and not simply with soldiers, but in our streets, in our children's classrooms and in the silent recesses of dreams.

Let us be like Ludwig, a little crazy, at least a little, maybe not as much as he was. Crazy enough to believe in beauty, crazy enough to defend it. Crazy enough to make beauty the heart of Europe again. Thank you!/ CNA