Prime Minister Edi Rama is at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, where the Paris Peace Forum is taking place. Rama is taking part in a discussion on the enlargement of the European Union and the future of the younger generation. The Paris Peace Forum is held over two days, on 10 and 11 November. This year, the focus of the discussions is effective governance as one of the conditions for lasting peace and stability. Rama will be part of a special session in the “Spotlight” format, where the European perspective and the importance of the EU accession process for young generations will be discussed.
Rama spoke about the protests of the past few weeks in Tirana.
The Prime Minister once again stresses that among the participants in the protests, some have been radicalized by antisemitic propaganda originating from Iran, and he also blamed opposition parties, which, in his view, hide behind radicalized children.
Rama: In our case, the protests have their own peculiarities. At the same time, I would make a distinction between what happened at the beginning, in the demonstrations in early June, where there was a large number of people from all walks of life who expressed concerns that arose as a consequence of the well-known project linked to Jared Kushner, son-in-law of Donald Trump.
And it was like a kind of red flag that sparked anger in our city. From there, a small number of protesters remained who escalated into violence, which is unacceptable and no longer has anything to do with what the protest was at the beginning. It is a complex situation across Europe, which I would define as a clash between the real world and the world of social media, where many young people receive information and disinformation and escalate into protests.
I think that when there is a protest, there are reasons to reflect and try to find what is behind it. The background is complex, a multitude of things that are like a pot where everything is boiling, from concern for the environment, antisemitic poison fed by the enemies of the country, the Khomeinist republic of Iran, and opposition parties that hide behind radicalized children with the illusions of ANTIFA.
And further, from people who have legitimate concerns about the cost of living, people paid by crime. Many complexities that in the end should not be treated in one way but in several ways and different rules, trying to create dialogue, to reflect, which we do all the time. We reflected on the budget, the rules of the state, the police, the prosecution, the courts, for people who have committed violence.