At the beginning of this speech on the 2025 budget proposal, I would like to convey some good news to all pensioners in Albania. In the coming days, the government will release a fund of approximately 100 million euros for their year-end bonus. This new bonus will be distributed in two categories.

All pensioners with a pension of up to 20,000 lek will receive three times the amount of the bonus given in previous years. Specifically, pensioners with a pension up to 20,000 lek will receive a new bonus of 150 euros. Meanwhile, pensioners with a pension higher than 20,000 lek will receive double the bonus of previous years, in the amount of 100 euros.

This distinction between the two categories is not intended to give less to those with a higher pension, but rather to give more to those with a lower pension.

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Madam Speaker, the practice of forcibly interrupting anyone who takes the floor here in this chamber must be addressed by putting it to a vote. This practice cannot be allowed to continue. Parliament is the place where everyone has the right to express their views and defend their position. Physical disruption, such as leaving seats to approach the podium or shouting from the floor, must be sanctioned through a vote. I kindly ask, that you to keep this in mind.

Now, at the outset of my speech on the 2025 budget proposal, I want to once again share with all pensioners in Albania the good news that, the government will release a fund of 100 million euros for their year-end bonus.

This new bonus will be distributed in two categories: all pensioners with a pension of up to 20,000 ALL, or up to 200 EUROS, will receive three times the bonus they have received in previous years, through a new bonus of 15,000 ALL, or 150 euros. Meanwhile, pensioners with a pension greater than 20,000 ALL will receive double the bonus from previous years, in the amount of 10,000 ALL or 100 euros.

The distinction between the two groups is not intended to give less to those with higher pensions, but rather to give more to those with lower pensions. This triple bonus will benefit more than half a million pensioners, specifically 511,000, including not only 400,500 grandparents, but also 65,800 disabled workers and 44,600 beneficiaries of pensions as single mothers or orphaned children. Meanwhile, around 210,000 other pensioners will benefit from the double bonus.

To be more specific, for all those receiving a social pension, this bonus is equivalent to an annual increase in their pension of about 13%. For those receiving a pension of 15,000 ALL per month, the bonus is equivalent to a monthly increase of about 9% of their pension, while for single mothers and orphans, this bonus brings a 35% increase in their monthly pension.

This is not just an important step in the budgetary sense; we are implementing a threefold and double increase in the year-end bonus, which must remain at least at the same level in the years to come. It is also a meaningful step in the direction of our declared goal to close the loop for citizens benefiting from Albania’s significant and sustainable economic growth, finally beginning to include pensioners in the redistribution of the benefits of economic growth.

On the other hand, this is not the only step we will take immediately to fulfill the comprehensive nature of economic growth. Because, in parallel with the distribution of the threefold and double year-end bonus, in the early days of December, we will also establish, within the Bank of Albania, a fund for a second bonus. This second bonus will be the spring bonus, which will further contribute to increasing pensioners’ annual income and will be given at the beginning of each spring. It will distribute among all pensioners an amount derived from the economic growth of the previous year, and consequently, from the state’s increased revenues.

With these two annual bonuses, combined with the automatic annual indexing of pensions based on price increases, our pensioners will immediately experience the tangible benefits of Albania’s exemplary economic growth on the road to EU membership within this decade.

Meanwhile, next year, we will have a new pension plan together with the economic growth, which will bring additional income for pensioners, while ensuring the long-term sustainability of the pension policy without endangering even a strand of the country’s financial stability, without threatening further economic development, from which the revenues for the sustainable increase of wages and pensions come. This plan will not only prevent reductions, but will actually increase both pensions and capital investments for the Albania of tomorrow and for the children of today.

Did you know, for example, that teachers with 38 years of service who retired before we came to government were receiving a pension of around 23,000 ALL? Meanwhile, teacher with the same years of service who retired after 2014 receives a pension of around 36,000 ALL, or 56% higher.

Similarly, for the same years of service and contributions to social security, a doctor with 40 years of work who retired before 2014, receiving the maximum pension from up to 10 years ago of 24,000 ALL (plus the indexing they received over the years), now receives 35,000 ALL. In contrast, doctors who retired after 2014 now receive 51,000 ALL.

The same applies to judges and economists. Those who retired before this decade of our government, and retired with the 24,000 ALL pension cap that applied to everyone, with no possibility of exceeding it, now receive 35,000 ALL thanks to indexing.

Meanwhile, judges and economists who retired during our government, thanks to the 2014 reform, now receive 53,000 or 50,000 lek. This is exactly how it is, since the pension system is funded by the social security contributions of all employees, not by taxes that only support those on minimal social pensions who have not worked or contributed to social security.

Therefore, for the 360,000 pensioners who retired during this past decade, their pensions, as a result of the 2014 reform, are calculated based on each person’s contributions to social security, and are consequently higher. This is a clear difference compared to the situation before our government came to power, when social security contributions from the workers of this country were not taken into account in the same way. In a democratic state, the amount of each person’s pension depends on the amount of their contribution, based on their salary.

Instead of fighting against the informal economy, increasing the pension fund with the contributions of every employee, and thinking about the future of the people—not just their own power—they had taken shortcuts until 2013. No matter how long you worked or how much you contributed, you could not exceed that ceiling of 24,000 ALL. This policy practically opened the door to the greatest fiscal hole in Albania’s history, a hole full of debts and cracks, which we inherited when we took office.

This is why, today, thanks to the decision of the Albanian people to entrust us with the leadership of the country a decade ago, and thanks to our pension reform in 2014, all those who have retired during this decade now receive higher pensions based on their contributions during their working years, and not according to the stamp of the anti-state chaos of the preceding decades.

Nevertheless, both the new bonuses and the new pension plan will certainly help to further heal the festering wound of the two and a half decades of the past. It is widely known that this is the most difficult wound to heal, just as it is widely known that a bankrupt pension scheme, like the one we inherited, is a wound whose full healing will take at least as long as the time it took for it to fester.

We restored the pension system based on the democratic principle of contributions—solid new foundations.

We have increased the number of contributing employees to the social security fund by 300,000 people. This fund has tripled today, from around 400 million euros until yesterday, as stated in the budget. In previous budgets, it was recorded at 1.2 billion euros, and today, we still have significant reserves, thanks to the substantial increase in wages, including the private sector, where we are now focused on boosting contributory revenues. This is also due to the further modernization of the digital tracking system for business activities and the new artificial intelligence model that is being tested and will soon be fully integrated 24 hours a day in collaboration with Microsoft.

Therefore, I am very optimistic that the significant increase in pensions will, in our fourth term, be the most meaningful reflection of the transformation of Albania’s economic core during these years of our government.

Up to this point, we have not done everything we wanted for pensioners, of course, but we have done everything we could. And now, as the growing economy is creating new opportunities for us, we will do even more for them—something that no one, not only cannot do, but doesn’t even know how to do.

The new budget is the most meaningful manifestation!

When we took office to lead Albania, the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was less than 10 billion euros! Today, it exceeds 26 billion euros!

This means that the Albanian economy has nearly tripled. The income per capita in Albania was 3,300 euros, and today it is 10,300 euros. In other words, it has tripled as well, and this is the highest growth in per capita income in the region. These are also the figures reported by the representatives of international financial institutions, not mine.

When I presented the first budget of our governing majority in this hall, the only thing that has not changed is what you saw at the beginning of my speech—it is exactly the same.

The entire fund available to the state for public services was 3.2 billion euros. In the 2025 budget, it is 8.2 billion euros—almost three times higher. No one, at any time, has increased the state budget in a shorter period by more than half of this increase, and this is to show generosity, since, generally, it has been much less.

When I came into this hall to present the first budget, 168,574 people with disabilities and 105,580 families receiving economic aid had been waiting for months for their payments because the state had turned its back on them, overwhelmed by the burden of debt. The debt of that government to construction companies and service providers was 40 billion, and the new roads that were presented as new were actually roads left unfinished, because companies had stopped working since, they weren’t being paid. These roads had to be rebuilt, for the most part, over the last few years, while also settling all the outstanding debts to these companies.

Public debt was over 70%, the highest and most dangerous in the region. Our first budget had a New Year’s bonus for pensioners: 20,000LEK, or 14 euros. There was no talk of any bonus for newborn babies. This year, pensioners will receive 150 euros if their pension is up to 20,000 lek, and 100 euros for any higher pension. The difference is so significant that it makes you understand and even justify those with whom we share this roof, for their confusion and the trap from which they have been unable to escape for over a decade.

Today, we’re talking not just about 100 million euros bonus for pensioners, starting now, with this year’s budget, which allocates up to 150 euros for the lowest pension. Which is a 13th pension of 150 euros. We’re also discussing a new fund that will be established in the coming weeks—right here, in partnership with the Bank of Albania—which we will launch this year for next spring’s bonus, and will continue every spring to share with pensioners what will come from economic growth.

Meanwhile, we’ve already allocated over 145 million euros for newborn babies, and an additional 22 million euros is included in the new budget for all the babies who will be born in 2025.

We’ve tripled the economy over the past decade, while also reducing public debt by nearly 15 percentage points, one of the lowest rates in the region. And let’s not forget that, along the difficult road to get here, we had to raise debt again after being hit hard twice—first by the pandemic, and then by the earthquake.

When I first came to this hall to present the first budget, we established the principle of fair taxation. Today, we are the only country in the region, and indeed in Europe, with zero tax and zero VAT for small businesses with up to 100,000 euros in turnover, and with zero tax up to 140,000 euros in turnover. Meanwhile, before our government took office, small businesses with turnover above 35,000 euros paid a 10% tax, and those with turnover above 55,000 euros paid a 10% tax plus 20% VAT.

We have committed that, by the end of our fourth term, there will be no changes to the taxation of small businesses—there will be no changes next year, and there will be none in the next mandate. Although we have not raised taxes on businesses throughout our entire time in government, the continuous and sustainable economic growth, combined with the improvements in state revenue management, has enabled us to significantly increase wages.

We began our journey with a public sector wage fund of around 500 million euros. In the 2025 budget, the wage fund will be more than double that amount—1.3 billion euros. From a minimum wage of 156 euros back then, today we have a minimum wage of 400 euros. From an average wage of 321 euros, we now have an average wage of 751 euros. And from an average public sector wage of 371 euros, today the average wage is 900 euros—nearly two and a half times higher.

I often hear that we are not a left-wing government because we don’t protect the most vulnerable groups. But what does the 2025 Budget say in the context of this decade? When we started our journey, the budget for social protection was 122 billion ALL. This year, it’s 238 billion lek, and in the 2025 Budget, it will reach 248 billion ALL. So, in terms of overall social protection, we have more than doubled it—nearly 2.5 billion euros for social protection. And if you add the new spring bonus, this amount will increase even more.

The numbers show clearly to anyone willing to listen. Albania has finally emerged from the depths it had been mired in for decades, and it is closer than ever to realizing the long-cherished European dream. This is because the numbers and facts are based on a new economic and social reality. For example, thanks to the newly developed tourism industry, which was nonexistent until recently, Albanians are now earning income that was previously unthinkable. Meanwhile, the state is collecting far more revenue than before, which is being invested in salaries, infrastructure, and transformations across all sectors.

Ministers will provide more detailed information on the significant budget increases for each sector, but here’s one last figure from me. If there’s one area, besides pensions, where we’ve made a major breakthrough, it’s agriculture. And this doesn’t even count the EU funds, which were nearly nonexistent before. With those funds, more than 500 meaningful projects have been financed or co-financed throughout Albania—agritourism projects, processing lines, collection points—these are now tangible realities in the country. Let me tell you what the 2025 Budget says: 146 million euros for agriculture. Do you know how much it was before? 35 million euros—five times less!

To conclude, for those who are listening—not for those who have heard nothing of what I’ve said—it’s important to clarify that this is not about me being satisfied, nor about telling anyone who trusts us, has trusted us, or will trust us, that they should feel satisfied. Absolutely not! There is no room for satisfaction, but there is plenty of room for trust.

The Albania we want is being built, step by step, stage by stage. We are raising Albania to the summit of 2030, where the courtyard of the united European family awaits, and where our national flag will stand side by side with the flags of Europe—a dream that generations of Albanians have longed for.

The road is still uphill, but the Albania we want is no longer a distant, invisible dream on the horizon; it is now a tangible destination, clear and within reach, though it still requires more work. And this work will be led by the one force that is capable of leading Albania—the Socialist Party of Albania.

The Socialist Party has a virtue that grows stronger every day: it listens, it endures, it fights, and at the right moment, it gives back everything as it deserves. The first budget we passed in this chamber was a reflection of a dark legacy of governance and the window to a new day that had yet to dawn.

This new budget we are about to vote on at the beginning of this week reflects a decade of meaningful achievements for Albania. But it is also the window through which we can clearly see the path to our historic destination. And for this historic destination, I have always told the Albanian people and I will say it again: “Make up your mind, because if you failed this time, you’ll fail even worse next time. But next spring, with their decision, they will make a judgment that will be the best historical judgment for the Socialist Party and the most deserved one for the remnants of a past that will never return!”