TIRANA, July 19 /ATA/ The First Intergovernmental Conference between Albania and the European Union was held on Tuesday in Brussels, marking the official opening of negotiations for our country’s EU accession.
Prime Minister Edi Rama in his remarks at the Conference stated that, “it is hard to believe that this is happening. For a long time we fought against the belief that it would never happen. However, giving up has never crossed our mind.”
“You all know very well that in Albania we do not agree on almost everything. But there is one faith that survives all our disagreements. There is no other way but the European Union. It is our dream, our challenge, our mission. It is our destiny,” said Rama.
“For centuries we have had to live under an empire and a regime that we did not choose. This time is different. For the first time Europe is our free choice and we chose to give everything to Europe. We did it because we believe in this space of freedom, peace and security, where our children and grandchildren belong to. But also because it inspires a different way of thinking about belonging to our region. A way that breaks with the past for good,” Rama said.
“Europe, with its values, principles and standards, is what makes possible another Balkans, the Balkans of peace, prosperity and security. An open Balkan of the 4 freedoms of the EU, too,” added Rama.
“Starting accession talks today does not make our dream a reality, but it makes reality a better place to pursue the dream. We know that what we have achieved so far is only the end of the beginning. We all know that our path to being here today has not been easy. The last few years have been a real saga, between hard work, appreciations, expectations, unkept promises and arduous start-overs. A story of having to endlessly roll a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down again, just like the story of Sisyphus. Yet we continued to walk again and again, maintaining our faith, even when we endured the final pain of an unfair slap on our face,” said Rama.
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