Speaking at an expanded meeting of the Socialist Party’s parliamentary group, Rama said that it is impossible to build a state if its direction changes according to whichever way the wind is blowing.

Commenting on the calls for his resignation during the protest, Rama also invoked Odysseus’ metaphorical encounter with the Sirens.

“I don’t know why—perhaps I may have given the impression that the thought of resigning had crossed my mind. I have received many messages, and increasingly so, because more and more people are coming to their senses and realizing that all of this is something that simply doesn’t hold up. No reasonable Albanian, even someone who has never voted for us, can accept Tirana being turned into a stage for a crowd that goes to block the airport. No one accepts this anymore,” Rama said.

According to Rama, people come to the protest from Kosovo, North Macedonia and other territories to “save” Albania in the name of Albanians.

“At moments like these, I take great pleasure in recalling Odysseus as he approaches the Sirens. On the contrary, he insists on listening to them, because only by hearing them can one understand how powerful the temptation is, in one way or another. But he does something else as well: he has himself firmly tied to the ship’s mast. Not because he lacks confidence in himself, but because he does not negotiate his destination. By binding himself to the mast with ropes, he prevents himself from changing course, because he knows that anything can happen, yet the goal is what brought him that far,” Rama said.

“A government has no right to close its ears. On the contrary, a government must listen. A government—and certainly a parliamentary group, speaking of a governing majority—must listen even to everything being said in that public square, in what has become a kind of stage set, and from the very first discussions it is clear that those voices have been heard. It must listen to criticism and public frustration. It is not possible for a government to dismiss everything by blaming the algorithm. That is not the case here.

But there is one thing a government can never do if it has a destination. A government must never hand over the steering wheel to the noise. A leadership team must not surrender to the noise, and the louder that noise becomes, the more a leadership team must strengthen its own identity, uniting everyone around the destination,” the Prime Minister emphasized.

According to him, a leadership team with a mission sees it through to the end, against all odds.

“I am very active on social media, but I never believe that I should be guided by the noise, by the wind, or by the waves that may rise there. I can, however, feel responsible for many things that need to be improved,” Rama added.

The Prime Minister assured that “we will continue to correct our mistakes, and that is something we have always strived to do.”

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