
Prime Minister Edi Rama has reacted after the incident the day before in Pustec, where during a visit by the Prime Minister of North Macedonia, the national anthem of Albania was not played, but only that of Macedonia.
Rama says that from time to time nationalists from different countries in the Balkans are appearing in our country, but Albania will not respond to them, as there is no threat to the sovereignty of our country.
Rama's reaction
What happened in Pustec is a significant parody of our different worldviews in this neighborhood of Europe.
The mayor of Pustec, Pali Kolefski, previously requested that the Albanian anthem be played. He was ignored and then apologized for a fault that was not his.
He proved to be a worthy statesman and citizen of European Albania, to the honor of himself and his North Macedonian community, for whom we wish only the best.
We have honored even that small community with a special status as a separate municipality, precisely because for Albania, minorities are not statistics, but national assets, and minority citizens are not numbers, but brothers and sisters with the same freedoms and rights as all of us.
Now, this occasional arrival in our territory of circus troupes of Balkan national-folklorism, sometimes from one country, sometimes from another and sometimes from yet another, not only worries us for ourselves, for the sovereignty of Albania, no, no, but also for the balance of political life here inside, where there is no Trojan mule raised in our hills or "diaspora" exported from within our neighborhood to shake us.
However, today I express my sincere regret to all the sponsors of this ancient circus of flags in the era of Artificial Intelligence, while to the parents among us who in such cases jump up in front of their digital mirrors, seeking answers in the same coin, I say:
No, Albania, Balkan Europe, cannot and will not allow itself to lower the currency of its values to the levels of Pustec's parody.