On the second day of his visit to Luxembourg, Prime Minister Edi Rama attended the second edition of the EIB Group Forum 2024 hosted by the European Investment Bank (EIB), an event that brought together senior policymakers, business leaders, academics, and civil society representatives to share insights about the growth outlook for the European economy, against the backdrop of war, inflation, and tight financial conditions.

The Forum also served as a platform to share ideas on investment into green and digital technologies to foster innovation and productivity gains.

Prime Minister Edi Rama was a keynote speaker at the panel entitled Road to Enlargement, a session that, based on the latest European Union’s new Growth Plan for the Western Balkans and the war in Ukraine, looked into the role finance institutions can play jointly in accompanying accession countries on their path to EU integration, also building on the experience in the Western Balkans.

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Prime Minister Edi Rama: Thank you very much! You asked for a panel to be remembered, but for it to be remembered I would have to attack the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). However, I am not going to do so.

So I would simply share my state of mind with the audience. Actually I am in a post-traumatic period, since I had to go through a long trauma with the European Union. While we were insisting to open the accession talk, they were insisting in telling us that they wanted us for sure, yet they were not ready to talk.

So, imagine one wanting to be married, while the other side says:”I very much love to marry you, but I don’t want to talk to you.

It is quite a traumatic experience, but it is over now, as we have already opened the accession talks and in this post-traumatic era I am much keener to praise the EU than to blame the EU.

The praise is totally a deserved one, because we are seeing the incredibly beneficial service that the EU is providing us through the accession talks, as an incredibly large knowhow space. And I think this makes the difference and this is what makes the difference also for Moldova and Ukraine vis-à-vis other countries that lack such a perspective, because where else could they find this knowhow? Who would possibly tell them how to build the institutions, how to build the state’s accountability vis-à-vis the citizens? Who would accompany them in this? Nobody would!

So we are blessed to have the EU to have the EU on our side and to have the EU as part of our future. But it is not only this. At this moment in time, the EU has made an incredible extra mile, completely against the odds and, I would say, completely against its own tradition and, for the first time, the EU has been able to think out of the box about the Western Balkans and I am talking about this new Growth Plan, which is an extra mile, because it opens up paths that were previously opened to the member states only. It was a bit “nothing or all.” So if you wanted this marriage, you had to endure the long waiting time, but in the meantime you had almost nothing, but very small and few things.

I remember when I showed Ursula and others the facts, the data, the EU per capita contribution to its own members in our region, which is estimated at over 4300 euros a year, whereas the EU per capita contribution to our region is just 138 euros. So, you can imagine the trends and forecasts when it comes to the convergence. After the pandemic in particular, this became even more dramatic, because the EU member states could use extra funding and incredible support programmes, while we were totally excluded from that.

So the new Growth Plan is an incredible opening up for a different way to look at the future, both from the EU and our perspective.

Last but not least, I think that within the EBRD and the European Investment Bank (EIB) there is something very important, which we need to make use of, and which is not the money, but it is the knowhow.

I very much hope that we will receive a lot more in terms of knowhow on scaling up funding of innovation, for catalytic instruments and so on and so forth, because this is what we lack a lot of capacities. And, surely if technology wouldn’t have come into our lives, our future would have been absolutely awkward, while all these data would mean nothing at all compared not only with us, but also with the rest of Europe. But technology is a blessing for us. It could probably be a curse for Germany, because they have created an incredible machine of paper work and therefore they find it more difficult to move to digital, being also Germans. But for us, the lack of big machines of bureaucracy to turn to something else is just a clean slate, so that we can start and take incredible steps through technology. That’s why I think much more open doors, both to the EBRD, to the EIB, as well as to the EU are needed for us to deliver on transformation through technology, through the digital and the artificial intelligence.

We certainly should deliver and do our job; we have to do our best, because as our beloved “future bride” has told us: It depends on us. So nothing comes for granted, unless you are under attack from a superpower and as such you fuel some compassion and they get you in without having to meet the benchmarks. But, if you are not under an attack, you have to tick all the boxes. Therefore, I hope we will continue to be patient, continue to be good willing. Frankly, I am not looking for faster and not merit-based EU integration, because it would have been like asking for a driving license without really knowing how to drive and this wouldn’t be beneficial to the country. So, I am looking for a full trip marred with plenty of neurotic situations, as it of course goes without saying, when you have to deal with the melancholic Brussels, but at the end you should tick all the boxes and be ready, because this is for us. It is for our children. It is neither for Brussels, nor for Paris or Berlin, but it is for us. The EU is the driving force to build a democratic state and this is something that would have never happened in a region like ours, where the only state we saw was the Ottoman Empire and we were the outermost part. Then we saw some versions of the state that were from bad to worse, from the Fascists to the Nazis and to the Communists, but no institutions that would really make the difference.

So I think we have to be grateful for being blessed to deal with the EU and every time we become angry with the EU, because it is impossible not to be angry, we should not forget that this is what we have and nothing else would replace it. So, it is a marriage. It is not perfect, but it is what we have!