Immediately after the conclusion of the EPC Summit, the International Future Investment Initiative (FII) Forum took place in Tirana. This global platform brings together political leaders and executives from the world’s largest corporations to discuss innovation, investment, and the future of the global economy. The FII Forum chose Albania as its host country for its first-ever meeting in Europe.

In the context of this Forum, Prime Minister Edi Rama held a conversation with producer Richard Attias, one of the event’s key organisers.

Prime Minister Rama spoke about fostering collaboration between the public and private sectors, emphasising the importance of creating spaces where decision-makers and those on the ground can interact and exchange ideas. He highlighted Albania’s potential to serve as a hub for Europe, thanks to its geographic and cultural characteristics, comparing it to a “new Italy” in terms of its opportunities and hospitality.

The Prime Minister identified energy, innovation, and tourism as key sectors for investment, with ongoing projects in renewable energy and the development of technology parks.

He also addressed the challenges faced by the European Union in its decision-making processes, underlining the need for unity to confront the growing influence of global powers.

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Richard Attias: Mr. Prime Minister, you just opened the first-ever edition of the FII Priority Summit in Tirana, which is an investment forum, just after hosting the EPC, the European Political Conference. What is your recommendation to make the public and private sectors work together in this current era?

Prime Minister Edi Rama: First of all, I want to say that what happened in Tirana and what’s happening here was unthinkable until not long ago. And I have to thank you very much and thank the Institute for this amazing opportunity.

And I was very surprised to hear from Mr. Ramayan that this is the first time in Europe. This is the best way, I think, to approach the very fundamental issue of putting forces together between the public and the private sector. And exactly this type of venue, where decision-makers and people who come from the ground where all happens can interact, can raise questions, can get answers, and even more than that, can put each other in contact. And by the way, we had the honour to have the French president here, and on the way out, he just took and gave contact with three people. And one of them was a guy working on healthcare AI, and he said that he was based in London, and President Macron said, Why in London? You have to come to Paris. Give me your contact. I’m going to call you. So it’s amazing. It’s fascinating.

Richard Attias: You know, I discovered your country in total humility only a few months ago with my wife, and we fell in love with the country, with the people. And each time, people are asking us, What do you think about Albania?

I don’t know if you will be happy with my comparison, but I think you are the new Switzerland of Europe. You are very, you are at the very centre of Europe. So in terms of geography, you have even more legitimacy to be at the, I would say, hub for Europe.

 Number two, the culture, the mix of culture, the mix of religion, the country of peace, a country of tolerance. So why were you so discreet until today? Because the whole world is now discovering Albania and discovering Tirana. 90% of our delegates are so positively surprised by the choice we made. And I think it’s just the beginning. So, what do you expect the future to be for Albania?

Prime Minister Edi Rama: First of all, I was a bit scared when you said the new Switzerland, because on one hand, I think we are not able to become perfect like a Swiss watch.

On the other hand, if we were, then Albania would be boring.

So I prefer, let’s say, a new Italy where you find opportunities, where you find the pleasure of hospitality and of food, but where you also don’t lose your smile.

We have been blessed by God, but cursed by history. And we gave a big contribution to this curse, to be frank, for many, many centuries and years. This country, we’re in a very small territory, 28,000 kilometres. You have two seas, you have mountains, you have nine rivers, lakes, and a different landscape every kilometre. It’s a place to visit, it’s a place to stay, it’s a place to invest.

On the other hand, this country has suffered dramatically from stigma, and it was very difficult to get people in Albania because the stigma was very heavy.                                                                     Then, when they came, every time they came, they said, Wow, it’s not what we expected. Now we are out of that. We ended last year with 12 million tourists, and it’s huge for a country of only 2.4 million people. We are looking now to get exactly what very graciously you are bringing to the country, the excellence, the top quality.

We need to balance the mass with the quality, otherwise we can lose on the way not just the chance to be Switzerland, which I don’t think we have, but even a chance to be a new Italy.

Richard Attias: In addition to tourism, which is definitely one of the first sectors to invest in, and you have so many projects going on with great investors coming from the United States, from the UAE, what would be the other sectors that you would recommend to potential investors to look at?

 Prime Minister Edi Rama: We have a very, very good place, geographically and politically, to do much more on energy, and we are doing so. So now we are going through a big project together with Italy and the UAE for the same Submarine cable to interconnect Albania with Italy.

So the two sides, let’s say of Europe, through the Adriatic and to do our best with what we have as a treasure here, the full green energy. So we are 100% renewable. The problem is, there is too much hydro. Now we are building solar energy. There are French companies and other companies which have come to build more solar. So, energy is for sure one frontier.

Another one is the youth, the young and skilled people of Albania, who are a good role model, let’s say, to work on innovation. And we are now having the first tech park with a very good incentive. So a lot of companies are interested in coming. And of course, in the services, we are good.                                                                                                                              But tourism, energy and innovation are three directions where we can do a lot more.

Richard Attias: At the Munich Security Conference a few months ago, you said, the EU is more E than U. It’s more European Union. How do you think we can fix this issue, which many people are aligned with? So, how can we make the EU united?

Prime Minister Edi Rama: One of the problems I see with the EU is the difficulty of coming out with a decision because there are many, many doctors for one patient, and then fighting to get the diagnosis and then fighting, which is the right medicine. And somehow, the EU is suffering from this democratic process.

On the other hand, it has to preserve democracy with a doubt. But the bottom line is that you should think that the only way to resist this new rising power and this new rising order is to do the unthinkable. So, to go very strongly against the prejudices that have been built when we hosted the EPC. I said to them, Listen, we have decorated this home with kids’ drawings. But I find it very, very similar. The dreams of kids with the dreams of the founding fathers of Europe, because both are not captured by the myths of the past.

So Europe has to overcome its past. I mean, the recent past, and should not lose the trust and should not lose the belief in itself as a continent of peace. So it’s good to prepare to defend ourselves. But we have to not forget that what is worth defending in Europe is not just the physical territory, but is the soul of Europe, which is practically the soul of the world. And if we lose this soul, then we might have the most mighty army. But what are we protecting?

Richard Attias: Mr. Prime Minister, you were reelected a few days ago for the fourth consecutive term, which is historical in Albania. What will be your top three priorities for this mandate?

Prime Minister Edi Rama: First of all, I have to share with you that I’m in a little trouble with my socialist fellows. Because when someone asked me how you you are a socialist and you won for the fourth term, what do you say to the others, I said, Listen, I, I don’t know what to say, because maybe I win because I’m not a good socialist, you know, so the top three things, as we speak, are EU, EU and EU for us.

So we opened the window of opportunity.

It’s very sad that to open this window of opportunity, we needed Putin, because it was his aggression on Ukraine that woke up everyone and turned the always very clear, but only in words, message that Europe one day will be united in action.

I hope that the election of Donald Trump will also make Europe take action on things that need to be done. So if we succeed in that, I think the four mandates will be worth it

Richard Attias: Which role are women playing in the new Albania, I model?

Prime Minister Edi Rama: When we started the campaign, I wanted the campaign to start with the women. So half of the campaign was rallies with women. We started with the front line of women in our party, women and girls. And then we expanded.

And then one day, you know, sometimes when you campaign, you can say things that, you know, can be not perfect, and then can open a discussion.

But one day I said, we are mobilising the women because 56% of the women and girls in Albania vote for us. So this is a big force, and if we have the women, we have the first voters, then we need just half of the men because the other half are dumb. And this opened a big issue, how we can say the other half is dumb and so on.

Being stubborn by nature, I insisted and I said, Listen, I believe that it’s not about not voting for me, you are dumb. It’s about not understanding that in this moment we need to unite to get to the EU, which is for all of us, not just for socialists or Democrats, is dumb.

At the end brought us even a bigger number of women voting for us, and the men were okay. So we got half of them, a bit more than half by the way, and we got a big majority, and I explained, I said, every smart man understands that yes, women are the driving force.

We have worked a lot on that because in this country, we have had two phases, one a long phase of centuries where women were treated like, and in that famous common law, which has its bright side of hospitality, there is a very dark side about women. So the woman is considered one of the animals of the house, the livestock.

When communism came, they talked about emancipation. But what they did was that they forced women to come out of their houses, and they forced them to work. But communism was very much against femininity, against beauty and was about uniformity.

And women were depicted like men, like they were as strong as men. And even in the paintings, in the pictures of propaganda, you never saw a beautiful woman.

Then, when freedom came, we had this first wave of Miss Albania, Miss Tirana, Miss the school, Miss, even Miss the kindergarten, because it was a kind of revolt to show up the femininity.

But still, of course, it was not the way.

So when I took the leadership of the Socialist Party, we started to put quotas, we started to invite girls and women to participate, and then we changed the whole thing. And it’s worth it, it’s very worth it.

Richard Attias: You just spoke about painting, pictures, you are an artist. You are a sculptor, you are a painter, I think culture is in your blood. How does this culture, which is part of your DNA, help you in your day-to-day job as Prime Minister?

Prime Minister Edi Rama: I, for sure, draw during meetings, and this helps me to keep some balance. I didn’t know that, but on the way I read a study, I guess from the Department of Psychology of MIT, where they looked on people who doodled during meetings, because there are a lot of people who doodled, not artists.

And two findings shocked me. One is that people who doodled during meetings have on average 30% more concentration on the topic that is being discussed. And it makes sense, because when you are sitting and you discuss, and you have something else in mind, then you look, but you are elsewhere. When your eyes and your hands are doing something apart, you focus automatically, you are focused on what is being done.

And the second finding was that 50% of the people who doodled during a meeting are less stressed from the topic that’s being discussed. And this I can witness. When there is an intense topic, and I don’t have something to draw, I get nervous very fast.

Otherwise, when you draw and you wait for your moment to kill, you don’t just jump on everyone. So this has helped me. I believe it has helped me in the beginning when I was mayor, that I started to colour, because we didn’t have any money, so to colour the buildings and then from colors to go further.

But in general, sometimes there is a tendency to say, Oh, we need artists to govern. It’s not true. It’s about the person, it’s not about the profession. You can have an artist who can be terrible, and you can have a lawyer who can be fantastic in government. So it’s about people and not about categories. You know, but maybe because the politicians have become such an under-respected category, and I think for all the wrong reasons, then there is this tendency that we need to find some salvation in some artists. It’s not true.

I believe that there are bad politicians, there are good politicians, as there are bad investors, good investors, and you know it.

Richard Attias: Mr. Prime Minister, if you look at the global world map, Albania is a hub, as I say, the catalyst between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. How do you see this role to be in the future, in terms of geo-economics, in terms of geo-politics?

Prime Minister Edi Rama: This is a blessing for us, also because of the composure of the society with Muslims and Christians. Thank God, with no problems. On the contrary, no boundaries, no prejudices, no nothing. We have the natural propensity to look everywhere, although it’s very clear that Albanians are very staunch EU and Europe lovers in general.

So, Europe has always been our dream. And when things have evolved, we have had some periods when politics became too focused only on the West, and we didn’t build relations with the East. And I changed that, starting by putting in our foreign policy document that we don’t have only two strategic partners, Greece and Italy, but we have three, we have also Turkey.

And then I started to build up the relationship with the Middle East, with the Gulf countries.

So, now we somehow are in a very good position, because our position in terms of geo-politics is very clear, we are West, we are aligned with EU, but we want to have relations and we want to have brotherly relations with these countries I mentioned, also because we have a very unique characteristic in Europe.

So, the last high-level visit to Moscow was in 1960. So, we never visited the Kremlin and never had a visit from the Kremlin or a government official, because of our history, but also because there is no appetite to get closer to Russia, and no Russian money, no Russian investment or anything.

With China, we have a good relationship, I mean, not like with Russia, we have a good relation, but still, you know, there is no Chinese investment and there is no big cooperation like with Serbia or North Macedonia or Montenegro and China.

So, for us, this is a bit of the horizon from the Middle East to Europe. America is new in the pitch through the investment that you were mentioning, but also energy investments. So, we would like to do more, and it’s good; we are happy with that.

Richard Attias:My last question, Mr. Prime Minister, what is your wish, your dream for the world, for Europe and for Albania?

Prime Minister Edi Rama: I’m a fanatic lover of that text of Abbe de Saint-Pierre, which I find crazy. Imagining an Abbe somewhere in France, having this vision and opening up the eyes of people about how the world could look differently and putting down the concept of this perpetual peace union.

The union of perpetual peace, which for him includes Russia, goes to the East, to areas that at that time were under the Ottoman Empire, which means not necessarily that every one of these countries should be in the EU, but every one of these countries should be part of the same community.

Like Switzerland is not in the EU, or Norway is not in the EU. UK, let’s see, because they look like they are crossing a depression desert. So, this is what I would dream about, but as Voltaire wrote, there were light interests and petty caprices that didn’t allow this big vision. Because at the end it’s that, it’s the egos, it’s the individuals in time, and the EPC is a bit of that, because France has always carried this idea of a larger Europe without necessarily all in the European Union.

Richard Attias: Mr. Prime Minister, thank you so much for your hospitality.

 Prime Minister Edi Rama: Oh, it’s an honour for me.

Richard Attias: Thank you for having us in Tirana. We hope to see you in Riyadh at our FII flagship conference in October.

Prime Minister Edi Rama: Now I have no choice but to come, even if I had something else, but I would come with the biggest pleasure, it would be an honour to be part of this sect.

Thank you.