"Misery, national emergency", Berisha: DP will overturn the income distribution model

The chairman of the Democratic Party, Sali Berisha, at the joint table with MPs and experts in the field, about the 2025 draft budget, referred to the difficult economic and social situation in Albania, which he described as a national emergency.

According to the leader of the DP, Sali Berisha, poverty and misery have affected 46% of Albanians, while pensioners are the group most affected by inflation, with their purchasing power significantly reduced compared to 2013. Many of them do not manage to provide food base, due to high prices that are often more expensive than those in some EU countries.

Berisha : Dear friends, we used the analysis and study of the budget to present to the Albanians our economic program as a whole, but first of all our concept for the distribution of budget revenues, which was contrary to the principles in which this the budget was distributed over 12 years.

Whoever wants, let them see the study of the Boston Group of 2012. This group, among the most prestigious in the world in the field of studies, finds Albania in the fourth best position in the distribution of budget income.

If a government is to maintain social cohesion, of the country, of society, one of the most powerful levers it has to concretize efforts for this cohesion is the distribution of budget revenues.

At that time, Albania was ranked in that position by that prestigious group due to the fact that Albania in the most determined way had increased the salaries and pensions of citizens, had reduced taxes and had invested in useful infrastructure for communities.

These three were the factors that made it possible for Albania to have that position. 12 years passed, Albania in relation to the distribution of income rolled with lightning speed, painful even greater, than it rolled in the PISA test.

In 12 years, we lost a position that was a quantum leap for Albanians, and this was the position of the highest paid citizens in the region. More paid than the citizens of two EU member countries, Bulgarians and Romanians.

With all this effort, we, as documented, invested more than ever before in the country's infrastructure. 12 years, from the top, from the first position, in salaries and pensions, we rolled to the last position.

Even after salary increases, because pensions have not increased, we still line up last in the region, but not only do we line up last, but the truth is that the sirens of the pain of poverty and misery are howling today for over 46% of Albanians.

Pensioners are in the most catastrophic, most inhumane, most ruthless situation.
Due to inflation, today with all the so-called indexation, the Albanian pensioner buys 30-40% less with his pension than he bought with his pension in 2013.

It is very painful to imagine that the prices in Greece and Italy of basic foods and basic products are clearly lower than in Albania. In relation to the EU average, the prices of basic products are 10-250% cheaper, while the pensioner, if they give him the non-indexed part, if they give him about 450 thousand lek, which, according to experts, is kept with VAT in those, it turns out to be true that they can't get those three meals.

At a time when this attitude was maintained with high salaries. They grew 2 and 3 times. Imagine, Edi Rama, Bajram Begaj, Altin Dumani, take as many as 50 to 70 pensioners, in a degree of extreme inequality.
Plus others, who receive as economic assistance and there are over 60 thousand families who receive from 60 thousand old lek.

So, poverty and misery are a national emergency in Albania today. An emergency, to which PD must and will respond by completely overturning this income distribution model and definitively.