In Tirana, the new book by American diplomat Christopher Hill, a prominent expert on Balkan affairs, was presented. During the event, Prime Minister Edi Rama delivered a greeting address in which he praised Hill’s role and contribution in the region, and highlighted the importance of this publication for future diplomatic and historical discussions.

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 Prime Minister Edi Rama:

For some reason, this is the place where I’m invited to do these kinds of things. And they know how to make me come without refusing, and so I praise them for that. And at the same time, I want to say that I couldn’t say no, because this moment is about someone who has always interested me, long before we became friends. And I took this risk to speak without having read the book, because the invitation came without the book. And I’m not going to go through the speech that a talented young man who works with me and who is very interested in these kinds of topics wrote for me. But I want just to say that if I were commissioned to write a book about the American ambassadors in this region, the title would be The Ghost and the Prima Donnas.  And the ghost is Chris Hill. The others were all prima donnas. And strangely enough, when time passed by, the prima donnas slowly faded away. The ghost, no.

His name is always recycled. And also accompanied by some quite attractive conspiracy theories.I have to say, when I heard for the first time about Chris Hill was when I was told he put Fatos Nano in jail. And it was quite an impressive way to leave behind your reputation after having just touched base in Albania and simply not having been engaged in any reform, in any transformation, but just jailing someone and leaving.

But there is one thing that I can say for sure, and I’m sure I’m safe to say that Chris Hill is maybe the only American diplomat who has served as an ambassador in this region who does not understand the Balkans from a distance, but gets the Balkans from the guts. Because he has lived in the Balkans back and forth. He has practically covered the whole map.

And strangely enough, he has never shown any temptation to speak loudly, to become an influencer, to show himself in pictures from the mountain tops to the seaside of this region. But always being there like a master whisperer. I don’t know what he has whispered to the prime ministers and the presidents in the countries he has served, but what I know for sure is that I was very impressed when I met Chris Hill for the first time. First of all, he didn’t seem. He seemed to me like a jailer of opposition people. And secondly, it impressed me the way he listened. This is not a virtue of the American ambassadors to tell the truth. They are great at speaking and lecturing, but they are not distinguished in listening. It comes with a superpower.

There is nothing to blame or to complain about. When you are a superpower, you don’t listen because you have a luxury that others don’t have. You have the luxury to fuck up and say fuck you. So, Arben Xhaferi once said something that I’m sure Chris agrees with because he has added to it that Arben said the peoples of the Balkans suffer from an ethnopolitical strabismus that makes them see each other crookedly. And Chris said it in a complimentary way. There are no secrets in the Balkans. It’s too small a place.

But the question that comes from both these sentences is in the Balkans is not about what happens, but it’s about whose version of events will prevail. And this is where it comes, the power and the strength, and also the danger of the American ambassadors, because of the version of events that prevail. Sometimes the right version prevails, sometimes the wrong version prevails, but whatever version prevails, it’s the version. And there is no way to contest it.

So, going through all that, I always wonder how one can do the job of being the most important person in the country because there’s no question that the most important person in this country for many years has been whoever was the American ambassador. And as I always used to say, being an American ambassador to Albania is the second most amazing job by being an American after the president, because you are God. And the answer, I believe, is in the personality and in the way Chris does it with a lot of distance, a lot of carefulness in listening, and a low voice.

I had the chance to get to know him, as I said, much later than he knew me, because this is the great thing about the Americans. You may not know them, but they know you. And then we had the opportunity to see each other on a few occasions when he was serving in the most difficult, I believe, spot for an American ambassador in the Balkans, because there is also such a thing. It’s not as easy as it is in Albania, in Belgrade. And to me, it was really amazing how he dealt with that place and how he succeeded in somehow shaping the course of events in that place in a period of time when I would say that country came closer than ever to what, from the angle of an American, or from the angle of a Westerner, one would wish.

So I just want to thank the rector and whoever else thought to give me this honour to have the opportunity to share some of my thoughts in this event. Not as someone who read the book, because I repeat, Chris, I didn’t read the book. I will, but then I’ll not have the chance to speak publicly about it because you’ll be a ghost again. And the only place where you speak about books is over here or at my building.

So if you come back and you are interested in a longer conversation about the book, at the building I am in for the moment, I would be more than happy to have this conversation and to tease you with some questions, which I’m sure you will be very successful in answering or avoiding.

Let me end with a quote that is here among some quotes selected by my guy from the book. Chris wrote, the problem between the two countries might seem like a joke in the heads of a late-night comedian, but in the Balkans, there was nothing funny about it. And then talking about his period of service, I guess, in North Macedonia, today, it was Macedonia when Chris was there.

He wrote, I began reading everything I could get my hands on about Macedonia, truly an example of what Churchill had once said of the Balkans, that it has produced more history than can be consumed. Now, for me, it was news that this was Churchill because I was taught that it was Harry Fultz, a famous American here who left, leaving behind a love letter to the Albanians when the Americans had all to leave that embassy that you came here to reopen, revengefully.

But in any case, being Churchill or being Harry Fultz, there is only one thing that has to be redacted, Chris. Not only has it produced more history than can be consumed, but it still produces more history than can be consumed. Fortunately, not as much together, but for sure same way in our own countries. Fortunately, by not producing as much together, we are less keen nowadays to have conflicts, and this is a great achievement. But still not stopping to produce as much in our own countries, we remain not keen enough to make the jump to maturity.

Chris, thank you so much, very sincerely, for what you have tried to do. It’s up to you to make your own mind how successful you have been, to help the countries, to help the communities, to help the politics wherever you have been, grow. But one thing I’m sure that no one that has had the chance to work with you will ever forget you. Now, only for good reasons, I don’t know. But for sure, you have left a mark on everyone who has had the privilege to deal with you and has had the honour to fight with you.

Thank you.