In a speech he gave yesterday at the occasion of Europe Day, Prime Minister Edi Rama attacked and mocked the Dutch parliamentary delegation that visited Albania at the start of the week with the purpose of drafting a report for the Dutch parliament regarding the opening of accession negotiations.
Prime Minister Rama ridiculed the Dutch MPs, calling their fact-finding mission not serious. As in the cases of almost every European voice critical of his government, this time too, Rama implied that the Dutch MPs’ skepticism comes as a result of opposition leader Lulzim Basha’s influence.
In his speech, Rama stated:
I feel like laughing when fact-finding delegations come here, they come in the morning and leave in the afternoon. They meet me, they meet a handful of MPs, they meet my dear friend with whom I share, although of course for different reasons, a love for the Netherlands, Lulzim Basha, and they leave. What facts can one find in half a day?
Meanwhile, Rama praised and glorified the European Commission, which, according to him, unlike the Dutch MPs, is more competent in collecting and analyzing facts. Still more absurd was the Prime Minister’s contention that EU Member States should not scrutinize the EC report too much, taking it instead at face value:
[M]eanwhile the European Commission is made up of an army of experts and bureaucrats, who eat, drink, speak, and hear only facts! How can one contest or debate the report of this army that operates in the field every day, by flying in for half a day and finding facts by meeting 5 politicians!
Still, the Prime Minister did not stop at that. He attacked the Netherlands, shifting the blame for the marijuana cultivated in Albania, and lecturing the Dutch MPs about what they should judge his government on:
I would tell my Dutch colleague that, if weed cultivation gives a bad image to Albania, the seeds are coming from the Netherlands, the technology is in the Netherlands, the market for it is in the Netherlands, where it is legalized. I do not accuse the Netherlands, a Member State, but I retain my right to not be identified as a “marijuana country,” but to be, instead, valued for the attempts I have made and the results I have achieved, such as the vetting law.
It is clear that the Prime Minister is attempting to reduce Albanian crime in Europe only to marijuana, which is currently not being cultivated en masse as it was in 2014–2017, while Albania has now become a key transit country for the trafficking of cocaine and heroin.
Ironically, the Prime Minister chose to attack the Netherlands, one of the six nations to found the European Union in 1957, precisely on May 9, Europe Day, and even in the presence of EU Ambassador Romana Vlahutin.
A few days ago, Prime Minister Rama attacked the Chairman of the EU Affairs Commission in the German Bundestag, Gunther Krichbaum, as well as several other German MPs who remain skeptic regarding Albania’s EU negotiations. Meanwhile, government-affiliated media ran a coordinated character attack against Krichbaum, alleging he was a Russian agent involved in child trafficking. These attacks resulted in a harsh reaction on the part of Bundestag members who held Rama accountable during his latest visit to Germany.
