GJIROKASTER – Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama stated on Saturday that maybe the Balkans needs Europe more than ever before, but on the other hand the EU has never needed the Balkans as much as to date, ATA reports.
Rama addressed the activity “Day of Europe” which this year was organized in the stony city of Gjirokastra.
Portrayed in Kadare books as the sloping city, to Rama, this activity in Gjirokastra is coincidentally related to the oblique course that Europe has taken at present.
To date we are at a crossroads. The most successful union in the history of nations is at a crossroads. I hope that everything in France will make a statement about an affirmation of Europe we want, however the fact that there is a second destructive alternative at play in Europe and which will be voted by millions of French does not overturn the question mark on the future of Europe, Rama said.
The union is a flawed structure, Rama said adding he is among the persons who see the offending imperfection of the Union to date simply as incompleteness of a project which in itself is awesome and as such should never be abandoned.
To date, Europe sees the first generation that has not been witness to war and much of it can be credited to EU. In spite of this, today it is much more clear than ever before that building walls to repel those who were unlucky to be born in Europe is not an alternative, because Europe has seen walls and post-blocks that have resulted in nothing but spectacular failures and wounds.
The Balkan region which was seen as a powder keg with Europe reclining in it, according to PM, needs to join Europe like never before, and on the other hand EU has never needed the Balkans as much as today.
Speaking about political situation in Albania, PM Rama said that even Albania is at a crossroads today, a situation determined by the will to enter a new stage and build a new justice, which would have been utterly impossible without the EU. Despite the resistance, obstacles and walls lying ahead of us on the path to enforce justice reform, it is clear that the future will prevail over the past. Europe will win over the hearts and will of Albanians instead of opposition to it.
Burden of the past in this region is much more heavier than anywhere else in former communist Europe, and to that end our efforts to get closer to Europe are an effort to break with the past.