‘We don't accept lectures’ when it comes to the fight against corruption, PM Rama says
Albania is committed to joining the EU by 2030 in an “ambitious but doable” timeline, Edi Rama told Euronews. The European Commission's annual check-up of where the EU candidate countries stand on their membership paths came out largely positive for Tirana.
READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/11/05/we-dont-accept-lectures-when-it-comes-to-the-fight-against-corruption-pm-rama-says
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00:00Thank you for joining us here online for this new Euronews format.
00:13This is 12 minutes with Edi Rama, Prime Minister of Albania.
00:18Thank you for being here.
00:19As you heard today from the report and from Marta Kos,
00:23indeed Albania is one of the frontrunners
00:25and the accession negotiations reached unprecedented momentum this year
00:30with preparations for the opening of the last cluster before the end of the year
00:35and now, quote, well advanced.
00:37Now this report seems very positive for you. What's your take on it?
00:42Yeah, the report is very positive and the whole year has been extremely positive.
00:49We have opened five of six clusters within only 11 months, which is an absolute record in terms of speed.
01:01It's something that until only a few years ago I would not have been able to imagine.
01:09But this is why life is so beautiful.
01:13So what's the secret? Why don't you share this secret with other candidate countries?
01:17The speed is related with two main factors.
01:22On one hand, during what I call years of humiliation,
01:28which were the years when the EU Commission was recommending to the Council to open accession talks with Albania,
01:39and we were rejected by a few countries, we were stubbornly prepared for the moment of the opening,
01:50and we trained in the hardest way with all our team by simply saying to ourselves,
01:58our moment to show our true colours will come, and for that moment we have to be ready.
02:09And as a matter of fact, when the moment came, we were much more advanced than maybe others in that precise moment of the opening.
02:19Well, given that this has been indeed a very long process for Albania, it has been 16 years altogether.
02:26You've previously spoken about the shifting goalposts by Brussels.
02:32Do you feel like this has changed and there is this new push and this situation is over for Albania,
02:40but also for the other candidates from the region?
02:43Because they have been also waiting for a very long time.
02:47And here comes factor number two, which is exactly Brussels, that changed its approach and woke up.
02:59Unfortunately, it was needed an aggression in the European soil, military aggression, to make Brussels wake up,
03:11not simply in the level of the Commission, where we have always found fairness, very painful, very neurotic, but fair.
03:23But also in the level of the Council, where the blah, blah, blah of before that,
03:30yes, one day we'll be together, yes, we love you, yes, we're going to marry,
03:36but we are not ready to talk for the moment, was over and a new momentum is still here
03:49and the new approach is still the case.
03:53I hope that this will not fade away and I very much hope that we will finally get together around the same table.
04:04Yeah, I was about to ask you about whether, you know, whether this momentum and this situation
04:09of more of serious commitment, as you describe there, whether it is going to last.
04:14Albania is now considered one of the front runners.
04:17Your goal is to enter the EU by 2030.
04:21Now, how do you also see this situation with the shifting goalposts by Brussels changing or possibly not changing for the other countries in your region?
04:34Well, for this you have to ask Brussels, but as far as I am concerned, I might tell you that the 2030 is not a date that I saw in a dream,
04:48but it's a deadline that is the result of a very simple calculation.
04:57We start from the fact that together with the Commission, in full consensus with the Commission,
05:04we have agreed on a calendar that is very ambitious, but it's doable, of homework for us to conclude the accession talks, the negotiations at the end of 2027.
05:19There is a possibility to do it even faster, let's say in the first half of 2027, and there would be reasons for that, but let's say end of 2027.
05:28And then the average time we have looked into when it comes to the 27 parliaments to ratify the decision is around two years.
05:44And this is how we envisage Albania to sit around the table of the EU on 2030.
05:51But of course, we are not at all against to be there faster.
05:57Everyone has its own path and everyone has to fulfill its own obligations and to do its own work, homework.
06:05So there are different characteristics in the region.
06:10There are different countries, different histories and so on and so further.
06:15When it comes to us, I can say with a very loud voice that we are the most Euro optimistic nation in Europe,
06:26or as Donald Trump would say, on Earth.
06:30Prime Minister, there is a specific focus as well by Brussels.
06:34This is slightly on the downside probably of the report, with the focus from Brussels coming regarding the issue of corruption.
06:40Now, what I want to ask you is that Albania is the first country in the world to appoint an AI as government minister,
06:46specifically tasked with fighting corruption.
06:50Now, would you give us an update? How is Diela doing? How is her and your fight going on?
06:58Albania is doing something unseen and unique in the whole region.
07:06Our justice reform and our recognition of the not only de jure, but the de facto independence of justice.
07:16And the full-fledged operation of a special structure against organized crime and corruption has practically created in Albania and for Albania,
07:34the example that the fight against corruption is something that goes very, very much beyond words, very much beyond makeups.
07:48And it goes very, very, very balanced without looking left, without looking right, independently from who is in government, who is in opposition, who was in power, who is in power.
08:08And with a lot of facts that show that what never happened in Albania from the day of independence and creation of the Albanian state in 1912 to until very few years ago,
08:26it's happening the last year, something that no other country in the region can claim to have done.
08:32And this is not to say that we are better than the others, but this is to say that we have taken it very seriously.
08:42And in this moment in time, we accept support, we accept partnership, we accept help, but we don't accept lectures from anyone when it comes on the fight against corruption.
08:57And of course, when it comes to Diela, she is the product of a systemic fight, which is not just about fighting cases and fighting in the court of law,
09:13but which is about fighting through modernization.
09:16And we aim to have within 2027 the first full AI public procurement that will allow speed, transparency, accuracy in levels that are unseen.
09:32Prime Minister, finally, let me ask you to wrap this up.
09:35What is the next creative idea and the next creative solution coming from you and from Albania on your way to the European Union membership?
09:44I'm sure you have heard that Diela is pregnant and she has 83 babies based on the last echography.
09:54So we have to wait for her to give birth to these 83 babies.
10:00And in the meantime, I have to tell you one thing that has not been much discussed, that we are the only country in this process to use artificial intelligence in the transfer of the acquis communautaire to our body of law.
10:18And to make of it the fastest process ever made in terms of not only translating, but also analyzing the impact and drafting and preparing the whole legal packages for the approval in parliament.
10:45So we are trying to run as much as possible and to make as much as possible leapfrogs using technology, artificial intelligence, but without never ever forgetting that our place in Europe is first and foremost deserved because Europe has the best place in the heart of the whole Albanian nation.
11:12And something that the others cannot pretend.
11:14Prime Minister, I have to follow up.
11:15Do you think Brussels could use an AI commissioner?
11:18It's not for me to tell Brussels what to do, but of course, I would be very happy to introduce Diela with whomever on the EU side will introduce him or herself like an AI commissioner or an AI technocrat or bureaucrat or whatever else.
11:41It doesn't matter.
11:42It doesn't matter.
11:43Prime Minister, thank you very much for this interview and for your time.
11:45And thank you very much for joining us here.
11:47There was 12 minutes with Eddie Ramo, Prime Minister of Albania.
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