During his visit to the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Edi Rama was invited for an interview at the BBC Radio 4 Today program studio:

-In 2020, just 50 Albanians crossed the English Channel to reach Britain. In 2021, it was 800, and last year it was 12 301 people, the vast majority of them, men. In December, Albania and UK signed a deal to tackle this issue. Early indications are that hundreds of Albanians have been returned to their country and the overall numbers of the crossing are down. But that’s complicated by the fact that numbers generally go down in winter. This is only one of a huge array of challenges for the country’s Prime Minister. Born in a family of artists, Edi Rama began his career as a basketball player, spent a decade painting in Paris, he was a university lecturer and he was then elected the leader of his country, largely on the back of his records as a Mayor of Tirana, the capital, where he championed the painting of the grim communist prefabricated building blocks in vivid bright colours. He is making his first official visit to the UK today and joins us now in the Today program studio.

Prime Minister Rama, good morning!

PM Edi Rama: Good morning

– Thank you very much for coming to see us. On top of the agenda of your meeting with our Prime Minister will be this issue of Channel crossing. What is your assessment whether the bilateral deal is reducing the number of Albanians, who are coming here over the English Channel?

Prime Minister Edi Rama: As you said, this is a complex issue. As far as I am concerned, I am here to make sure that everyone hears clear and loud that Albanians are not just about the boats and as Britain is not just about James Bond or Mr. Bean, we are not just about “Taken”. So we are here as an important community and we are here driving, constructing, cooking, and even singing for you guys. So it is not just about the boats, it is about a complex issue that has of course to do with the ambition and the need of people in our part of the world to reach in countries, where they imagine their future to be more and more in their hands and quicker.

-I am very keen to talk about Albania more broadly, but given that the boats will be high on the agenda of talks with the Prime Minister and given the public concern here, I would like to ask you just a couple of other questions about that. We have this bill, this new bill going through our parliament, which is going to disqualify those coming in these small boats from using modern slavery laws to remain in the UK. Do you think that’s a wise move? 

Prime Minister Edi Rama:  I am not here to comment a bill that has already inflamed your own public opinion and your own debate, but I am here to simply try and convey the message that Albania is an incredibly beautiful country. Our tourism is experiencing growth and a growing number of Brits are visiting Albania, just like are doing more and more Europeans. We have now opened the accession talks with the European Union, so we are in a totally different position than what is sometimes being described. Unfortunately, we have seen ourselves and our  community being singled out in this country for purposes of politics and it has been a very, very disgraceful moment for the British politics, but, on the other hand, I am very satisfied with your Prime Minister. We have set up clear path towards tackling together whatever has to be excluded from our relations and from our world of law and justice, but at the same time making sure that some rotten apples do not define nor our Albanian community here either our relations. Great Britain has always been a role model for us and I must say that without Tony Blair, without the Labours’ new way we wouldn’t have been as successful as we have been by implementing exactly the new Labour spirit in our own party and in our own ruling majority. But it is not only that. It is about culture, it is about many other things and many other lessons. So we want to make the best out of this relation.

– When you say that that it has been a disgraceful episode in British politics, do you mean or are you referring to the language, the rhetoric used to describe what are, after all, often desperate people who try to arrive by boat crossings or do you mean more broadly the stereotyping of Albanians more generally?

Prime Minister Edi Rama: But these are both, right? I mean exactly what has been spoken out by the cabinet members, starting with the Home Secretary, and then I mean exactly what has been developing as a singling out of a whole community, which is not something you do in our civilization and it is something that doesn’t represent Great Britain at all. So this has been a very low moment, a very low point in our relations, but, as I said, there is will to overcome it. It is true that by strengthening our cooperation, there are some clear results that, rightly so, the Prime Minister and the government here are pointing out. But, on the other hand, we refuse and we will always refuse having this mix between some criminals and the Albanians as such, because giving crime an ethnic seal is by itself a crime.

-I don’t know what do you wish to say about the British Prime Minister, Mr. Sunak, how do you find him to deal with, compared to his predecessor Boris Johnson?

Prime Minister Edi Rama:  Listen, don’t bring me there, because it is not for me to answer this question, frankly. I must say that with Boris we had a friendly good relation and I feel very sorry for him. I wish I wouldn’t have seen him as I saw him yesterday. It is really a very difficult moment for someone that has been on top of British politics. And when it comes to Mr. Sunak, I haven’t met him yet. We have had a very nice phone call and I will make my mind after meeting him.

-This September marks a decade that you have been the leader of your country. How much longer do you wish to carry on and what are your priorities while sitting in office?

Prime Minister Edi Rama: As I told you, I have been very much inspired by the new Labour. We have seen it work very well. The more the world gets complicated, the more I think that the new Labour answers are the right ones and we are already experiencing it. And on the other hand, it is about the fire inside and as long as I feel the fire inside me, I am not going to stop.

-Prime Minister Edi Rama, thank you very much for coming here!