“Flamingo Mirror/Pasqyra e Flamingos” is the first interface of “Pasqyrë Albania”, which went live today for citizens and the media, in Albanian and English, offering full transparency on the facts contained in a government file.
All official documents, legal references and detailed information addressing every public question and concern about the Zvërnec/Sazan file, at its current stage, are now available.
Every file on “Flamingo Mirror/Pasqyra e Flamingos” remains open and can be updated.
“It is very important to make clear that Flamingo Mirror contains no rhetoric, no political statements, and no rebuttals targeting the various sources that spread fake news or half-truths, which are also the biggest lies. It contains only the language of facts, supported by legal references and official documents,” Prime Minister Rama said at the presentation of “Flamingo Mirror/Pasqyra e Flamingos”.
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Prime Minister Edi Rama: Good afternoon. We have gathered here today for an important presentation of one of the components of Pasqyrë Albania, which is still under construction. This is an extremely important component of Pasqyrë Albania because it concerns 100% transparency on government files.
Of course, this component of Pasqyrë Albania, like Pasqyrë Albania itself, is the result of an impetus from society, expressed through the protest at the beginning of June. At the same time, it is a necessity in a new era, when facts are increasingly under intense pressure from clouds of disinformation, fabrications, half-truths, or simply unverified information.
We have called it “Pasqyra e Flamingos”, or “Flamingo Mirror”. It is available in both languages, Albanian and English. Naturally, it could only begin with the file attracting the most attention in the Republic of Albania as we speak: the Sazan–Zvërnec file. It is a resource that will serve everyone. It will allow citizens to see not what the government writes, but what is written in all the official documents and what all the materials in a government file say.
At the same time, it is clear that we will continue to add to Flamingo Mirror every government file involving a particularly sensitive issue. Together with the team coordinated by Jonida, we are preparing several other topics.
Very soon, we will publish the government file on Kayo, another name now being discussed across social media channels and on television.
Milot–Balldren has also been another topic discussed on the basis of what we consider to be fabrications, half-truths and unverified information. In all these cases, facts have, of course, come under intense pressure from a world that increasingly depends on what is said, rather than on how it is verified and to what extent.
As I said, this is one component of Pasqyrë Albania. Pasqyrë Albania will have a range of components.
Pasqyrë Albania will also make it possible to follow, in real time, every government project, every public project and every public works project funded by citizens’ taxes. Flamingo Mirror also has another component: questions and answers. The questions are gathered in real time, including through artificial intelligence, from what is said and written about the file in question, alongside the official answers.
This is very important, and I will conclude by handing over to Jonida. It is very important to make clear that Flamingo Mirror contains no rhetoric, no political statements, and no rebuttals targeting the various sources that spread fake news or half-truths, which are also the biggest lies. It contains only the language of facts, supported by legal references and official documents. Today, it is, so to speak, an opening of the executive branch’s “secret library”. That is the purpose.
It is a mirror that is constantly being updated, because the file being presented today is itself not a closed file. It is an open file, to which further documents will be added as they become available in the course of the process.
In this particular case, the Minister of Environment is also here. The file does not contain the environmental impact study because that study has not yet been submitted. The file does not contain the urban planning and architectural design because that design has not yet been submitted. As soon as these are submitted, along with anything else that comes in, they will immediately be added to the mirror. I am saying this to clarify what may appear to be missing. What is missing is simply what is not yet available, and that is why the file remains open.
When the file is closed—I mean officially—there will also be a status indicating “closed file”. So Flamingo Mirror contains open files.
I will now hand over to Jonida for a more detailed presentation, specifically of what is contained in the file that opens this mirror today, that brings it online as a component of Pasqyrë Albania. Pasqyrë Albania is a much larger mirror, which, as I said, is still under construction.
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Prime Minister Edi Rama: First, once again, the questions are the product of AI-assisted research into everything discussed on social media and everything appearing on social media, including content from traditional media. So these are not handpicked questions. They are questions that have been gathered and arranged in order, in very substantial numbers. That is the first point.
The second point, which I believe is very important to emphasise, is that a file is placed on Flamingo Mirror because it is of particular public interest at the time it is selected.
Having said that, Pasqyrë Albania will be organised by sector and will initially serve as the single, unified online address for the Albanian government. We believe it should also become that of the Albanian state, incorporating both the legislative and judicial branches, but here we are speaking about the Albanian government.
There, organised by sector, everyone, every citizen, will be able to find an answer or obtain information on the issue that interests them: public works, investments in the area they are interested in, construction in their neighbourhood or city, and so on.
Of course, this is an enormous undertaking. Those building Pasqyrë Albania, under the direction of our technology team, are putting a tremendous amount of work into it. Lawyers are, of course, also involved because, as we have said, Pasqyrë Albania will be enshrined in law. It will be incorporated into our existing Law on Co-Governance. Where we have established the co-governance platform in law as an instrument for interaction between the government and citizens, we will also incorporate Pasqyrë Albania.
All of this will begin to be made public, step by step. In a few days—I do not know exactly when it has been scheduled—we will return for another important component: the presentation of a new Diella module, developed by AKSHI’s artificial intelligence team. In this way, the whole mosaic will come together month by month, and we believe that within a year we will have the entire system fully established.
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I hope this presentation will be useful to everyone who followed it, and, beyond them, to everyone with a real interest in the facts and documents relating to issues of particular interest.
I would like to conclude by thanking everyone who contributed to this substantial and very intensive preparatory work. I would also add that keeping Pasqyrë Albania active in its day-to-day operation—which, as I said, is still under construction—is also a very significant challenge for the administration, for our central institutions, for every ministry and for the Prime Minister’s Office. It requires us to think in the opposite way to how we have traditionally and consistently thought.
What does this mean? It means that documents have traditionally and consistently been treated as property over which the state has exclusive rights, even in all those cases where the documents should, in fact, be jointly owned with the public.
In many cases, this has exposed the government to a great deal of suspicion and many, many negative feelings towards it, as a result of documents held by institutions coming to light through individuals, or their disclosure being regarded as a heroic act of bringing the truth to light. Yet the state should share with the public, without delay, all the truths bearing the signatures and stamps of state institutions.
Of course, certain institutions and certain types of documents are subject to classification, and their disclosure is restricted. But we are talking about a very small percentage here. The vast majority of documents are jointly owned and should be treated as such. This, however, is a very significant cultural challenge for the administration.
And, since heads of agencies are here, I would like to take this opportunity to convey this message to you and to all your counterparts who are not present.
Our difficulties with public information, the repeated reports of the Commissioner for the Right to Information, and the challenge we face today—which also results from a new confrontation, on an entirely new plane, between truth and lies, in a world where lies have gained a platform they have never had before and truth is continually shrinking—all strengthen our determination to do our part so that members of the public can, whenever they wish, obtain information at its source.
That means being able to see the facts directly, for themselves. The help we provide in guiding them to those facts should not be rhetorical, agitational, propagandistic or political. It should be educational.
This is very important in order to safeguard the state as a non-negotiable concept, so that people can live in harmony and do not devour one another alive amid this vast pack of lies and all these storms of disinformation and misinformation that arise in everyday public life.
Of course, Flamingo Mirror, Pasqyrë Albania and all these new tools that we are trying to put at the state’s disposal, by entering the same arena—the digital world, where lies reign—are not magic wands. But we must do our part with all our resolve and with the absolute conviction that we have nothing to hide. That the government has nothing to hide.
If there are shortcomings in a process, gaps in a procedure or deviations in a file, there are two ways of looking at and understanding them. We must distinguish between a flaw, an unintentional mistake or an omission resulting from a shortcoming in the process, and something deliberately diverted for other reasons.
I believe that 100% transparency in this effort will also help greatly in this respect. It will also do much to relieve public administration employees, and everyone dedicated to serving the state, of the intense pressure created when a mistake is prejudged to be a crime.
I believe these are sufficient reasons for us to be deeply committed to nurturing this new living entity and keeping this whole endeavour alive, allowing it to breathe through the daily life of government.
Meanwhile, many of the mysteries and many of the myths surrounding Zvërnec–Sazan, or Sazan–Zvërnec, are, in practice, automatically unravelled and debunked in Flamingo Mirror.
Thank you very much!
Thank you all for your contribution!
