At the opening of the proceedings of the 4th Diaspora Summit, which will take place today at the Palace of Congresses, Prime Minister Edi Rama addressed those present with a speech:
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Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,
Dear brothers and sisters of the Albanian diaspora, friends and guests,
It is a distinct privilege to stand before you today as the Prime Minister of Albania, and an equal pleasure to be here among you as one voice among many voices that together form a nation far greater than its borders, because Albania does not end where its territory ends. Albania lives wherever its people carry their language, their memory, their stubborn hope, and their unbreakable sense of belonging.
Today, in a world more connected than ever, where words travel across continents in an instant, you are the living extension of Albania everywhere. You are the nation’s spirit beyond geography, the proof that identity is not confined to a map but expands through the journeys of its people.
Not long ago, Albanians left their homeland with hearts heavy as stone, carrying the courage of those with nothing to lose and the pain of leaving everything behind.
But what history once called a painful departure has been transformed into an irreplaceable bond. What once seemed like a divide had become a bridge. The Albanian diaspora is no longer a story of departure; it is a story of multiplied strength and added value for Albania.
Through storms and steep climbs, you built lives, families, careers, and successful enterprises in countries that came to recognize you not through stereotypes, but through your contribution, resilience, and dignity, while Albania remained misunderstood by many. Yet beyond your individual success, you carried something far greater: the invisible thread that binds us all to this land. A thread no distance can break, woven from the language spoken at home, the traditions preserved, and the memories passed from one generation to the next.
This thread is not nostalgic; it is our strategic asset. It is our greatest unifying force, and at the same time, our greatest challenge: to preserve it, protect it, and pass it on in a rapidly globalizing world. Because the nations that succeed are those that understand their people, wherever they are, as part of one shared ecosystem of knowledge, opportunity, and growth, held together through language.
My friends, this summit is not a ceremony. It is a statement of intent. It reflects our conviction that the Albanian diaspora is not on the margins of national life, but at its very centre. Albania today is no longer a country that asks its diaspora for remembrance or remittances. It is a country in transformation, a vast construction site that invites you to take part: in investment, in innovation, in academia, and in shaping the future.
And like any construction site, Albania’s path to 2030 and the European Union comes with dust, noise, and disruption, sometimes overwhelming. But looking back to when we first imagined the diaspora summit gives us the strength to continue the immense work we have begun.
Back then, it was a moment of reunion in a country filled with renewed hope yet still marked by open wounds. It was the first step toward reconnecting Albania with its people beyond its borders. Today, we are building that connection into something lasting and complete.
At the first summit, your key demand was the right to vote from abroad, a demand repeated and again. It was a fundamental call not only to belong emotionally, but to participate in decision-making.
Today, you come having exercised that right, from a demand to reality; from a voice seeking recognition to a voice shaping the country’s future.
Then, many of you faced prejudice because of where you came from. Today, you stand proud wherever Albania is mentioned. The name of Albania has undergone a profound transformation, from a negative stereotype to a symbol of sunshine, nature, and hospitality.
From a country once viewed with suspicion or even contempt, Albania is now spoken of with curiosity, and increasingly, with desire.
From a place that needed explaining on the map, Albania is now a name that speaks for itself.
And Albania itself has changed just as profoundly. We began with a GDP of under €10 billion. Today, it stands at €27 billion, with a target of €35 billion by the end of the decade. We began with less than €3,000 income per capita. Today, it exceeds €11,000, with a goal of over €15,000 by 2030.
We began with just over 2 million visitors, counting even returning citizens as tourists. Today, Albania welcomes 12 million tourists annually and has surpassed €1.6 billion in foreign investment.
Back then, accessing public services from abroad meant waiting until you returned home and spending hours in queues. Today, 95% of services are available online, accessible anywhere in the world with a single click, thanks to your nationality.
Back then, Albania was labelled a country of impunity, where the law applied only to the weak. Today, impunity belongs to the past. No one stands above the law, and justice is independent as never before, Today, impunity is a myth of the past in Albania, and today Albania is a country where no one is above the law and justice is independent as it has never been since the very beginning, from 1912, until the moment when we, with full will, placed in its hands the sword that belongs only to them, so that it may deliver equal justice for all and spare no one.
Back then, the doors to European Union negotiations were repeatedly shut. Today, we have opened all chapters in record time, within just 11 months, because we persisted. Just as you persisted when doors were closed to you abroad. And when the moment came, we were ready.
Back then, the European future was a distant hope. Today, it is a concrete process, we sit daily at the table with the European Commission, aiming to conclude negotiations by 2027.
As Ismail Qemali declared at the birth of our state, “Albania will be made.” That was not a description, it was a belief. A belief carried through generations, through hardship and renewal, a belief that today, more than ever, has taken concrete shape in Albania’s European state-building and in an objective that is no longer imagined, but clearly seen and within closer reach than ever: to seat Albania at the table of the European family, as an equal among equals, by 2030.
Fan Noli reminded us that Albania cannot live without its Albanians, and today, when Albanians are as much within as beyond the borders of Albania, while Albania is on its final uphill stretch toward the long-dreamed union with Europe, this saying of a leading figure of Albanian identity takes on a particular meaning and a special force.
And as Faik Konica warned, a nation cannot rely on illusions about itself, it must constantly strive for self-improvement. And it is precisely here that the greatest change of this decade lies, where, thanks also to transformative reforms and intensive efforts toward integration with the European Union, we have moved from an Albania that struggled to survive to an Albania that strives to improve; from an Albania that sought to be accepted internationally amid widespread skepticism, to an Albania that is respected and trusted as never before on the international stage.
Albania today is not the country many of you once left behind. It is a country that is changing every day, sometimes slowly, sometimes faster than expected, but always moving forward, irreversibly.
Albania 2030 in the European Union is not merely a political objective. It is a civilizational choice. It is the culmination of a journey that many of you have already lived through.
You know what it means to live in societies where institution’s function, where merit is recognized, and where the rule of law is not a promise, but a reality. Your experience is not outside Albania’s future; it is central to it.
And you know better than anyone that this path is not easy. What you have endured is a lesson, a lesson that helps us understand what Albania must endure as well, until it will be sat equally in EU table. Because no deep and lasting transformation comes without effort, without sacrifice, and without perseverance.
There will be disappointments. There will be moments when it feels as though nothing is worth it. There will, without question, also be moments when progress may seem to slow down and doubts may arise. But no path to success is built through comfort, and nations certainly are not built in moments of comfort.
They are built in the tension between what was and what must be. But the beauty today is that what Albania can be is no longer a distant dream. It is an open road, a visible road, a tangible road for everyone.
Among the many things I could have brought to this summit, I chose to bring a gesture, an act, a decision of the Albanian government that, to me, carries not only practical value but also symbolism: the “Mountain Package” for all those who left their land in the mountains in search of a better life outside Albania.
The mountains have always stood outside life and are far from the development of this country. They have always been the place where Albanians withdrew to protect themselves, to hide from those who sought to capture or assimilate them. But today, the blessed day has come when the mountains, too, can become part of the sources of Albanian prosperity.
Because today, for the first time in our history, we have two things that until not long ago we did not have: we have an Albania trusted by the world, and Albanians of the world who trust Albania. We have the world coming through numerous visitors, exploring even the mountains. And we have Albanians across the world who now see that Albania is no longer beautiful and attractive only to them, but also to those around them in the cities where they live. And that is why I say to Albanians who own a piece of land somewhere in the mountains, somewhere on a hill, who have an abandoned house of a grandfather or great-grandfather, to take up the Mountain Package and turn that land, turn that house, into a source of well-being, assuring them all that what today’s Albania, an Albania that attracts 12 million tourists a year, is able to do for them through their investment and the government’s support is this: that from that new source of well-being, they will earn at the end of the month more than they earn working for others abroad.
And this mountain initiative, of course, applies to everyone. A global Albanian community, educated, connected, influential, and proud, a community that understands both Albania and the world, a community that can serve as a bridge not only between countries, but between ideas, cultures, and opportunities, is a community whose members, whether they choose to return and live in Albania or remain wherever they are, looking toward Albania, not only have much to contribute to Albania, but today also have something to gain by working with Albania.
And this is why today matters, not because we have gathered, but because we are nurturing our relationship to better nurture Albania. From distance to closeness, from memory to engagement, from feeling to strategy.
And let us be clear: Albania’s future is not written only in Tirana. It is also written in Rome, in Athens, in London, in New York, in Berlin, in Zurich, in every place where Albanians live, work, and dream. But without question, Albania’s future is also written wherever Albanians live around its borders, starting with the other independent state of Albanians, Kosovo, and continuing with Albanians in North Macedonia, who must never be forgotten as a state-forming people of that neighboring and friendly republic, and further with Albanians in Montenegro and elsewhere.
On this occasion, I would also like to thank for their presence the Minister of Foreign Affairs and First Deputy Prime Minister of Kosovo, my friend Glauk Konjufca; the Speaker of the Parliament of North Macedonia, Afrim Gashi; my long-time and irreplaceable friend Ali Ahmeti; and, of course, my unmistakable and one-of-a-kind friend Dritan Abazović.
And in closing, I want to say that I did not come here today simply to deliver a speech or send a message, but to renew an invitation, to continue reconnecting, not only emotionally, but actively. To reconnect and to see Albania not as a country the diaspora left behind, but as a country becoming a European state, one that, in its shaping, needs everyone: Albanians within and beyond its borders. An invitation to be part of a great national project, greater than any government, greater than any political cycle, greater than any single generation, because it is as great as the legacy of all those, from Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg to Ismail Qemali, and through all the heroes, martyrs, and fallen across all the lands where Albanians have lived and continue to live, raise children, and shape the future. A legacy that calls for Albania and the Albanian nation to take their rightful place at the common table of that family we are now preparing to join.
Which, in the end, means to be an inseparable part of a family of people as a people, and a family of nations, as a nation. Because a people and a nation are not their government, but the bearer of all the legacies that move them forward in the name of the future, while never forgetting the debt owed to those who gave the past the meaning that allows us today to proudly say: we are Albanian.
Thank you very much!
Long live Albania!
Long live Kosovo!
Long live Albanians wherever they are!
