Today is a beautiful day for Albanian families in Italy. Their honest work, their consecutive years of tireless work to build a household economy by giving their toil and sweat, their contribution to economy and social insurance in the dear neighboring country, will pay off as of today with their pension that everyone will receive according to what they deserve.
Today marks a day of triumph for politics as a treasured tool to deliver and make the ordinary people’s lives better, safer and more decent. For me it is one of those lucky days when the feeling of being helpful for the people of this country becomes obvious and depletes to zero the whole heavy burden of the smear and mudslinging in the political and media arena.
This is one of the days when I openly state that I really don’t mind all the scolding, accusations, slander, endless speculations that sometimes become so much that you would want to say: “to hell with it all!” But then the effort goes on and on, patiently and with perseverance to see days like this, when the endeavor and refusal to give up in the face of troubles, obstacles, delays, which sometimes turn into procrastination against your will, pay off and is rewarded with the smile of the families that have been waiting for what that they truly deserve.
Today, more than 500,000 Albanians can look delighted for the end of a long 30-year plus odyssey. They have been long waiting for this day to come since we started talks with the then Italian government on the pension rights for the Albanian migrants around ten years ago. At first it seemed quite impossible due to the significant financial cost of such a deal. But we succeeded in this too. In the last ten years, we have also launched and successfully concluded the negotiations on the pension rights agreements with 16 more countries, from Germany to Canada, while all the previous governments combined had concluded only one agreement with Türkiye, which was also negotiated by a Socialist administration around 20 years ago.
Today is the day to thank all those who listened to us and supported us from the friendly Italian side. There are many more than that, but I would like to particularly thank five people:
Italian Senator Tommaso Nannicini, who was personally committed to keeping alive the extremely difficult process of prolonged negotiations throughout endless labyrinths of the Italian bureaucracy;
The former Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, dear friend Luigi di Maio, who gave the process a significant boost during his term in office;
The Italian ambassador in Tirana, Fabrizio Bucci, without whom this process wouldn’t probably have survived the dormancy of endless delays;
Our Albanian Ambassador in Rome, Anila Bitri, who committed herself to working closely with the Italian authorities as a spokesperson for the legitimate rights of all Albanians, who have worked and paid social insurance contributions in Italy.
And last, not least in terms of importance, the Prime Minister of Italy and the precious fellow companion in the efforts to further strengthen Albanian-Italian relations, Giorgia Meloni, without whom today’s signing of the final document of this vital agreement for the Albanians of Italy, simply would not have happened.
Today I am very proud of the overall outcome of the effort made by the Socialist government in support of Albanian immigrants, who thanks to this effort enjoy the recognition right to their work and hardship in 16 countries, where they will be rewarded as pensioners based on social insurance contributions they have paid through their hard work.
This effort won’t certainly end here, because many more agreements are to be concluded until the last Albanian worker abroad enjoys the right to recognition of their work, wherever they have paid social insurance contributions in another country.
But today is the day to end this message by extending a greeting to all Albanians working in Italy:
Congratulations on your well-deserved pension rights!