Alex Soros at the Rama summits, as an emblem of the "Distinguished Society"

Alfred Lela

Edi Rama borrowed from Tony Blair, one of many imitations, the concept of public-private partnership. This 'innovation' of Blair's Third Way mixes private enterprise with state resources; in the case of Albania, it is probably the biggest failure in governance. The British case, which wanted to cancel the slowness of the state bureaucracy through a partnership with the speed of private enterprise, in Albania married two greedy types: the corrupt official and the shady businessman.

Ilir Beqja, former minister of Health, is the symbol of this failure and of this economic-political profile. This did not make it in Mediterranean-Oriental Albania like everything else Anglo-Saxon.

Edi Rama stuck this knife in the public treasury and in the back of the Albanian state, but now he is doing the almost unthinkable: twisting it. He has decided to transfer two columns in which lies virtually the entire weight of the state to Public Private Partnership: justice and foreign policy.

Without any excellent observational skills, the followers of the regional summits in the Balkans may have noticed the presence, increasingly carefree and emblematic of Alexander Soros, the son of George Soros. Soros Jr. has made room in these meetings by passing from Tirana and the will of the Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama.  

Has Mr. Rama and other Balkans countries transferred their foreign policy to the PPP scheme? Or, by doing this, have they finally admitted that they are failed states by choosing subcontractors to carry out their foreign policy in regard to allies or opponents?

The state or diplomatic protocol does not envisage other (non-state) actors, neither in talks nor in the "family photo" of international summits. I don't think you can see, for example, the Koch brothers in the picture of any of the G9 summits. Of course, political and state actors are pushed or influenced by actors and spheres of influence, but this is all behind the scenes. The staging of 'influencers' damages both parties, the influencer and the influenced. At least, this was the meaning of this interdependent relationship until recently, when states were led by statesmen and when tycoons, despite their power, understood that in public policy, there are some impassable red lines.

So what is Edi Rama doing with Alex Soros at the Balkan 'fair': is he creating a foreign policy of spectacle in times of war, or is he opposing the conventional political and military powers with the doctrine of an Open Society, in which countries like Albania, which has neither society nor muscles, cannot contribute anything?!

Someone has to tell someone that to talk about the dangers of war, which can descend from the Russian steppes to the Illyrian peninsula, and to have, at best, a Sorosian voodoo in the counterattack program is at least short-sighted.

For Edi Rama, this probably doesn't mean much. From the non-political perspective, he may be designing men's skirts and women's pants in a society that is no longer open but torn. Still, Albania is not a product but a bequeath of many pioneering minds and hands.

To empty the country dry and lend its public resources to subcontractors is not a sign of betrayal but of a curse.