In his video message to the citizens, Rama said that the official start of EU accession negotiations is only the end of the beginning of a very challenging, but right, arduous, yet beautiful, lengthy, but not lonely journey.

“What day! What an evening! A century ago, on July 28, 1922, Albania established its relations with the United States, nine days ago Albania’s path was officially connected, without return, to that of Europe, denied for centuries!” said Rama.

“Imagine it just for a moment, sisters and brothers, just for a moment: Neither our parents, nor our grandparents, nor our great-grandparents, nor the Albanians before us, ever had our fate and opportunity! Fate and the opportunity of freely choosing their destination, even though, since Gjergj Kastrioti, the shattered, wounded, violated, denied dream of all the generations before us came from the sun that rises from the west!

They survived on the slopes of empires and regimes that they did not choose themselves, while we have the luck and the opportunity to live on the uphill towards the top where Albania has its natural place, under the sky of the United Europe,” Rama said in his video message.

He said that, “the official opening of EU accession negotiations is only the end of the beginning of a very challenging, yet right, arduous, beautiful, lengthy journey, but not at all lonely. From the most isolated, backward, poorest country on the continent, here we are today not only way more developed and less poor than just three decades ago, but we are more protected from danger than ever before, between our two great strategic allies, the USA and the EU, and respected by everyone in the international arena, as a small country, but with character and dignity.”

“Albania at the helm of the OSCE, Albania on the Security Council of the United Nations, Albania at the negotiating table for EU accession, Albania an air base and soon also a naval base of NATO, Albania leading the process of transforming the region from an area of war and conflicts into an area of peace and economic development, all these developments of recent years, which not only our parents and grandparents, but also many of us could not imagine until a few years ago, when Albania had lost the compass and every international dignity,” emphasized Rama.

He said that, “of course, on the way to get here, in addition to our decisive role in these years, there were also many other contributors, starting from those who came out on the street chanting, “We want Albania like all of Europe !”, to everyone who put a stone in this wall that we have built until today with great effort and patience and above all with a clear vision for Albania. But the level where we have elevated Albania today shows us how low we were when we started off, and how much road we have to go and how much effort we have to make to reach the top dreamed of for 500 years on end.”