If you were to listen to him without knowing which country he was talking about, you would think you were listening to the prime minister of a model European democracy. A leader of a state that has consolidated institutions, guaranteed the separation of powers, built uncontested elections, and created standards that can teach others lessons about liberal democracy and transatlantic relations.
But no. It was Edi Rama.
The prime minister of a country that has been wandering the corridors of the European Union for more than 30 years without being able to enter it, came to Estonia to explain to Europe how to wake up and to America how to interpret Donald Trump.
At the Lennart Meri Conference, a serious security and geopolitical forum, Rama spoke with the assurance of a global leader, reminding Europe that Putin “woke it up” and Trump forced it to “pull itself together.” He even went so far as to mock Europeans who “waste their time listening to what Trump has to say.”
There is something almost surreal about the fact that the prime minister of Albania – a country with massive emigration, politically captured institutions, economically concentrated media, contested elections, and extremely centralized power – appears as a pedagogue of Western democracy.
Because the problem is not that Rama speaks at international conferences. The problem is the brutal contrast between global rhetoric and Albanian reality.
While in Tallinn he talks about the "weaknesses of Europe", in Albania the opposition has been denouncing for years the control of institutions, administrative pressure and a model of power where everything revolves around a single man. While he analyzes NATO and the Euro-Atlantic balances, the country he leads continues to be one of the most fragile economies on the continent, with young people leaving en masse and with a climate of deep distrust towards the state.
The greatest irony is that Rama speaks about Europe as if Albania were hostage to European bureaucracy and not to the very model he has built over the past 13 years. As if the only problem were Brussels' hesitation and not the fact that Albania still struggles with corruption, democratic standards and the real functioning of the rule of law.
There was a truth in his speech: Europe truly woke up from war and geopolitical fear. But what Rama didn't say is that Europe doesn't function solely with rhetoric, political marketing, and charismatic leaders. It functions with institutions that limit power. Exactly what has been weakened in Albania year after year.
And perhaps this is why Rama's speeches abroad always sound more European than the Albania itself that he governs.
