Prime Minister Edi Rama has stated that Albania is making a contribution regarding illegal migration, through the agreement with Italy.

Rama made the comments during a joint press conference with the Bavarian Prime Minister, Markus Söder, the President of the EPP and the leader of the EPP group in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, the Chairman of the CSU parliamentary group for Bavaria, Klaus Holetschek, after addressing the traditional meeting at the beginning of the year.

Rama also added that Albania is a small country and does not have the opportunities and tools to make a difference regarding illegal migration, but added that it does its part with the opportunities it has.

Excerpt from Rama’s speech:

Thank you! Thank you very much. I feel more humbled and honored than ever to have been invited as an honorary friend by my highly valued colleague and dear friend Markus Söder and the group of the Christian Social Union (CSU) to have this extraordinary moment, not only exchanges, but also of a European feeling.

For those who don’t know, 40 years ago Franz Josef Strauss visited Albania completely isolated. At that time we were the North Korea of ​​Europe. His visit was a sudden glimmer of hope. And then German-Albanian relations were restored a few years later. Since that time, if you would ask the Albanians, there is a special connection with the Land of Bavaria and of course Bayern Munich has played its role, I can’t deny it, but it’s not just about football anymore, it’s about with something that is deeper.

We have thousands of Albanians living here and they could not be more grateful and fulfilled than that, being a part of the economy and the efforts of the Bavarian community.

Having said all that, I also had the honor to have the opportunity to share some thoughts also in the presence of another quite distinguished colleague and dear friend, I must say today Arnold Beber, who has represented Europe in our eyes for so many years.

For so many years we have been talking about the topics we have discussed and we have put them on the table with your Prime Minister during his historic visit to Tirana.

Of course, we also talked about how Albania sees it and how Albania thinks to contribute, against illegal migration through the agreement we reached with Italy.

I have to say that Albania is not the solution because we are too small and we don’t have the means to be the solution, point one, and secondly, because the solution is not even in the hands of a big country like Germany, but Albania can do its part to contribute to this solution, just as every European country must do its part to contribute to this solution as this challenge requires a pan-European response.

Any isolated effort is doomed to bring consequences that may become irreparable for the future, so the whole European family must stay together and agree on a single answer and not on many and varied answers that sometimes do not relate to future generations, but to the politics of the day.

If I could speculate here, I would say that the difference between boys and men in office is that boys want to show something, men want to do something, and this is also what countries have to do when they depend on the governments they have.

We are here, we want to be part of the solution, we want to be part of the effort. We are not the EU, but we are E without B, so no one can decide for us, whether we are European or not, because this has already been decided by God and by the geography that has placed us in the middle of Europe and the European Union is the only reality in history of maps with outer borders and an inner border. There has been no other similar reality in history.

So, you enter the EU and to come to Albania you have to leave the EU. It’s just a 1.5 hour flight from here and we’re in the middle of it.

We want to be fully part of it. For that we have to do our job, we are doing good things, I think, in many areas. Our economy is doing better, our tourism is booming and by the way, I invite you all to come and visit us. You will not regret it and you will want to come back and of course we want to do things with the government of the Land of Bavaria and we would be very happy to be of help.

This is my approach to it. We stand together for whatever we can and as far as this can be useful. However, we are small and not rich, but being small and not rich does not stop us from being together on a moral level when you are part of a family and when you know your place and how to honor this place of yours in family.

Thank you!