Pressed at a media briefing after the first meeting of the European Political Community how his proposal and of the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte for the European Political Community was received, Rama said that, “this is a process now, but the important thing is that it was launched a new format based on an idea that is not new, but it has always run into impediments along its way. And I actually believe that because of all the spirit created by solidarity with Ukraine, which has actually pulled together this whole family of democracies in Europe, regardless of whether they are the EU or only E.”

“I believe that the project is very likely to be developed and consolidated further,”  Rama said.

“Even the format of the meeting was very unusual because, after the plenary session, where I had the honor of being one of the speakers, which I believe was an extraordinary honor for Albania given that it was a format with more than 40 countries, we worked in round tables and elaborated on the issues related to our proposal and also the hottest issues, from the worldwide energy crisis to Putin’s inflation and definitely also to the impact of the ruble in our societies”, said Rama.

Asked about the skepticism whether the voice of all European countries will be heard in this new format, Rama said that “this is a process.”
“Fear has been a very decisive force throughout the history of efforts to build a European Political Community, just as it has been an impediment at certain moments for all formats, including for the EU itself, but in a situation like this, Europe is at the point where it needs to create the future before making a forecast about it, ” said Rama.

Asked if the European Political Community will serve the same as the “Open Balkan,” Rama said that, “it is a useful comparison to have a better understanding what it is about, that is, it is a community of countries that come together to address issues that are increasingly prevalent.”

“The energy crunch cannot be divided into parts. Challenges such as climate change cannot be divided into parts. The demographic crisis cannot be divided into parts, and so on. For this reason, the future presents us more and more with shared challenges, because we are in a new era of jeopardy. We have emerged from the age of safe perspective and entered the age of risk. And this age of risk has brought us together and has in fact pushed and is pushing us to come closer because of the war-induced inflation and because of all the repercussions of a war which was not started by us, yet we cannot prevent it from affecting us in the form of war inflation, in the form of rubles in dirty hands, which try to mess things up and definitely in the form of skyrocketing energy prices,” said Prime Minister Rama.

“It was shocking to hear my colleagues speak about the grim reality, about the increase in the price of energy and the impending increases, meanwhile we continue to insist in Albania that the prices for families, for small businesses are kept unchanged, and even for a number of enterprises that have been seriously hit by the entry to the free market, we will explore all venues to relieve this pain and shield them to some extent. We also saw a chart of inflation rate related to energy and I was somehow relieved , not pleased, because there is no room for pleasure here, that of all these countries that were here, only Hungary has a lower inflation rate in this regard tham us,” said Rama.

Asked if the issue of the sea will be discussed in the bilateral meeting with the prime minister of Greece and if he thinks that within this year Albania and Greece will turn to the Court of Justice, Rama said that , “this is a legal process which includes a set of rules, procedures, and we will follow the procedures all the way through, because we have to be coherent about what we expect from this process, about the unified position of this court, so what one party intends, what the other party intends, it takes time. So we don’t have a consensus between the parties.”

Asked how much this organization is expected to help Albania on the pathway to EU accession, Rama said that “all of them are needed.”

“In this format we find ourselves in another integrated space and most important of all is that Albania has a completely different voice and a different influence, because it represents a part of Europe that is not in the United Europe, but remains Europe,” he emphasized.
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