Prime Minister Edi Rama’s address to the Democracy Summit, hosted by the President of the United States, Joe Biden:

It is an honor for me to address for the second time this Democracy Summit, initiated by the President of the United States of America.

Thank you, Mr. President.

One year after the beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, this second round of the meeting of democracies around the table takes on a whole new meaning in terms of its urgency and importance.

As a country that has endured the darkness of the dictatorial regime and the lack of fundamental freedoms, from the moment it joined the community of democracies, Albania has not only shown national commitment to build a state that relies on democratic institutions, but also has persevered in its arduous journey towards this new destination in our history. We will never be able to thank enough our role models and our strategic allies, the USA and the EU, which inspire us on this new path, full of twists and turns.

Although still a nascent democracy, today, Albania is a proud member of this community of democracies, proving its values and convictions in the international arena, not only as a member of NATO and an EU candidate country, but even fulfilling special tasks, such as the chairmanship of the OSCE in 2020, or the current term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

On the other hand, improving democratic life remains our top priority and serving our citizens better is the most important part of our daily work.

The digital revolution of public services in Albania, which started off with only a few services in our national platform e-Albania a few years ago, has now given our citizens the opportunity to receive 1225 online services or about 95% of all public services, which means more transparency and no more bribery in the interaction between the state and its citizens. This does not mean that we can declare triumph over corruption, but simply that we can prove our ambition, our willpower and our persistence to fight it with a clear vision of modernization.

Our justice reform, which is at the core of our transformative reform agenda, is finally showing the country that, yes, fighting corruption is not only possible, but also doable. Therefore, thanks to such a far-reaching reform and completely new institutions of justice in place, what was historically unimaginable until a few years ago, is becoming possible in practice: individuals who have links with the  govt. are punished and prosecuted. This had never happened before in the history of Albania.

As part of the Open Government Partnership Initiative, Albania continues to work towards building a more open, responsive and responsible government towards its citizens. We are proud to top the UN’s index of women’s participation in governance and to see the gender gap in the workforce narrow every year with steady steps – from more than 20% less 10 years ago to less than 14% today.

A lot of work has been done on all fronts, yet more needs to be done, so this is what we fight for, being laser focused on our new destination of Albania’s fully-fledged integration in the Euro-Atlantic community and serving this purpose side by side with our great allies. We were recently hit by a rather severe cyber attack from a dictatorship, Iran, and we remain hopeful that Albania’s allies, above all the US, will do more to help us defend our country in a war that we cannot win alone.