Speaking on the panel entitled “Universalism when you can and multilateralism when necessary”, Rama highlighted the importance of the European Political Community.

The Prime Minister said that the idea of the European Political Community, which was put back on the table by President Macron, is not entirely new, it has its roots in France in the 18th century.

“The project didn’t go very well back then, but it kept repeating itself as a vision. Then we had the EU and so on until Mitterrand returned in 1991 with the same idea to build a bridge between the EU and the rest of Europe,” said Rama.

The Prime Minister emphasized that “we saw the idea of the European Political Community unfold immediately after the war broke out, but also after experiencing the pandemic that proved to us at great cost that the lack of this connecting bridge can create distance, cause a tragedy of gap opening up between the rich and the poor”.

“We saw the EU behave like a federation of selfish rich countries when confronted by the fear of death, they ran away from responsibilities to distribute vaccines,” said Rama.
The Prime Minister recalled that “for a long time we heard them say ‘we have to work with the Western Balkans and commit them as China, Russia and Turkey will have clout in the region”.

But, he continued, “if it were not for China, Russia and Turkey, we would not have survived the first wave of COVID-19”.

“Vaccines came from these 3 countries,” he said.
“I am very hopeful that this will take us further and will have the right way to articulate itself so that it is not a repetition of the EU accession process, i.e. a duplicate, but it is a space of European countries sharing the same stands, coming together and coping with universal dramas and dilemmas”, said Rama.

The Prime Minister went on saying that we are faced with a painful paradox given that we have to cope with unconventional wars such as climate change, food crisis, terrorism, immigration and at the same time with the conventional war, which does not allow us to reverse these unconventional wars which threat humanity. Striking a balance between the two is a very big challenge,” he added.

Meanwhile, Rama said that the Balkans has so far managed to steer clear of conventional war as the most fragile link in the chain.

“If we talk about the European Political Community and we are there, we have our weaknesses because we know very well that in the Balkans Russia has the greatest potential influence and can inflict bigger damage, due to the historical divides that are still present. We have a big issue in the Balkans, which is the issue of fully normalizing the relations between Serbia and Kosovo, but at the same time it is important to see the Balkans put on a united front. All Balkan countries vote the same at the UN when it comes to the stance of our entire community against aggression and so on. We are moving on the right track, it is not easy, it is quite painful instead”, said Rama.
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