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The three moments that dismantle Rama's campaign for the 'European passport'

Politiko 2025-04-15 12:41:15

The three moments that dismantle Rama's campaign for the 'European

As in every campaign, Edi Rama is once again in the role of the merchant of beautiful dreams and for a month now, he has been packaging the European dream, in exchange for the votes of May 11. Once he promises Albanians that they will have a European passport and for this he creates large counterfeit passports with Photoshop, which he exposes on the giant screens of the electoral scene.

Then he gives speeches and describes the day when Albanians will walk with dignity in the corridors of airports together with other European citizens, side by side with Germans, Dutch or French. In the end, he insists on the campaign slogan that only he "Only with Edin" and with the Socialist Party will we manage to see light at the end of the tunnel in 2030. But like every fairy tale that is told before going to sleep, this one of May 11 also has its moment when the voice of reality is heard to shake off the drowsiness to which the sophisticated propaganda of the government leads.

Only with Edin? No, says the EU

1) In the speeches that Rama has given during the electoral meetings, he insists that only the Socialist Party can progress in the EU integration process. Not in vain, the SP slogan is “Only with Edin”. Rama even goes further and says that officials in Brussels are closely following the situation in Albania and, according to him, the deeper the victory of the Socialists in the elections, the stronger the desire of Albanians in Brussels to become part of the European Union will resonate. However, in a reaction of the EU delegation to Lapsi.al, this fable turns out to be completely false, and the EU even claims the opposite, that integration is not the exclusive domain of one party, but of all parties and the entire Albanian people. “The process of Albania’s integration into the EU is a national strategic objective, which is strongly supported by the vast majority of citizens in Albania and enjoys full inter-party support” was the response given by the EU delegation after Lapsi.al inquired.

 

Kaja Kallas does not confirm the promise for 2030

2) One of the promises that Rama makes in electoral rallies is the one that has to do with concrete deadlines for the process. For example, the prime minister promises that in 2027 he will completely close the negotiations with the EU, while in 2030, that is, in his fifth mandate, we will be part of the European Union. As with any false illusion, there is a problem when talking about concrete dates. A few days ago, during her visit to Albania, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the EU, at the same time Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas was asked by journalists at the conference about the possibility of Albania's membership in the EU in 2030 and she also refuted this slogan of Edi Rama. Kaja Kallas took care to elegantly avoid the deadline for Albania's entry into the EU, saying: "it is a realistic objective, but in order to fulfill it, several steps must be taken, and Albania must approve and implement the reforms in practice." In other words: we cannot talk about any magical deadlines now, the ones that Edi Rama lets out without prompting in his monologues in front of the computer screen and that he calls "Eye to Eye".

Germany also stops. It calls for reflection, not EU expansion

3) In the campaign rhetoric, Rama plays with the idea that now, in this period, the conditions have matured for the EU to decide to give a chance to the enlargement with the countries of the Western Balkans, among them Albania. But recently, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), one of the most important and prestigious newspapers in Germany, and at the same time one of the most well-known in Europe, has revealed that the coalition agreement of the future German federal government sanctions a strong turn in foreign policy, which no longer prioritizes enlargement, but rather reflects on the internal functioning of the EU. “Until the next enlargement, internal consolidation and reform within the EU that strengthens it institutionally are needed,” – it says in the first part. Practically, Berlin is dashing the hopes of those who hoped for a quick integration into the EU and this is news that contradicts the packaging that Rama makes of the European dream, in function of May 11.

In those few cases when journalists have remembered the stubborn facts that dismantle the slogans chewed during the campaign, Edi Rama does what he knows best: he takes out the tape of the monologue with "owl", "swamp", "snakes" and other epithets of a man who has no more arguments left. Because it is easier to produce a European passport in Photoshop than to build a state whose citizens do not need to dream of any foreign passport. But of course this cannot happen when you live in the most corrupt state in Europe, where the more beautiful the dreams of the campaign are, the more bitter the reality turns out to be after the elections./ Lapsi.al

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