Lindsey Hilsum: First of all, thank you very much, Prime Minister, for seeing us. Protesters, nearly 60 days now. How does it feel to have protesters outside your office for night after night after night?
PM Rama: Amazing for the country, for the society, because in the same boulevard not long ago, kind of 15 years ago, people were killed with real bullets by protesting peacefully. I have reflected a lot upon this protest, and I have come to realize that for the people is not, and rightly so, it's not about the facts, it's about higher expectations bring people to the street. And it’s fine.
Lindsey Hilsum: Which is not a bad thing!
PM Rama: This is amazing. That's why it's that fantastic, so I understand them.
Lindsey Hilsum: Have you rethought any of your policies because of these protests?
PM Rama: Which policies?
Lindsey Hilsum: The policies of the project at Sazan and Zvernec which was how it all started with the endangerment of the flamingo habitat and the other habitats there.
PM Rama: No, the project has not started.
Lindsey Hilsum: Well, I've seen it.
PM Rama: No.
Lindsey Hilsum: What have I seen then? Should I not believe my own eyes?
PM Rama: I'm gonna tell you what you've seen. But there is no project started. And to start with Sazan, which you included in your question, in Sazan there is no project, there is no deal. Bringing Sazan in is totally unnecessary because we don't have anything in Sazan yet.
Lindsey Hilsum: But of course, Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump related the two together, didn't they? They said that the two projects are are connected.
PM Rama: Yeah, the idea is connected.
Lindsey Hilsum: Well, tell me how it is then? Because I went to Zvernec and I saw where the project had started and then stopped.
PM Rama: No, the project had not started in Zvernec.
Lindsey Hilsum: So, what did I see then with the fences and so on?
PM Rama: I’m going to tell you. It's not the start of the project. Is just the adjustments for doing the preliminary work, before the permission would be issued, based on environmental assessment, geological, hydrological
Lindsey Hilsum: But you normally do an environmental assessment before you bring in the bulldozers, because the bulldozers can disturb the environment. So, normally, you would get a few scientists just going in and having a look.
PM Rama: The bulldozers there have been used to open the path for the people, for the community to not let to open a road for the community, through the private property, to not, to not block the people from going back and forth. So, it's not…
Lindsey Hilsum: But they were going back and forth on the just the sand road anyway. So, they they weren't blocked before, but they were blocked afterwards because they were blocked by the fence.
PM Rama: Again, now if you want the facts the facts I'm telling you the facts.
Lindsay Hilsum: Mr. Kushner said that you were on the yacht with them when they found it, found the island in 2020.
PM Rama: I was invited to join some people in a yacht that stopped in Albania to refuel going to Montenegro.
Lindsey Hilsum: This was Nat Rothschild’s yacht?
PM Rama: Yes. I was invited to go. I went. And I met with Jared and Ivanka. I don't know if they heard before about Albania anything, but for sure I can tell you that they were not interested in anything about Albania in terms of direct interests.
They were very much interested in the history and where we were and so on.
Number two, when this happened—when some months after in Davos, I met Jared, and he expressed his interest, and he said that he would be interested to explore the possibility of investing—and of course, I said yes. How I would say no? I said yes.
It is the most normal thing to me. This will be one of the most amazing things that will happen to Europe since long time not many amazing things happen to Europe since sometime
Lindsay Hilsum: Why is it amazing?
PM Rama: Because it will be not what people imagine, wrongly so, and because it will not be what you imagine, wrongly so.
Lindsey Hilsum: Well, I'm not imagining. I've just looked at what Jared Kushner put on his Instagram feed, and I've looked at some of the other plans. But I understand that those are not the final plans.
PM Rama: What was put in Instagram was just a teaser. The project has evolved, I mean the process has evolved, now there are top architects involved and the landscape designers that are famous for working with wetlands, very famous. And in the same time we are doing the environmental impact assessment independently from them. So the project does not aim to brutalize a beautiful place. It aims to regenerate it.
Lindsey Hilsum: The European Commission has expressed concern, and obviously Albania's accession to the European Union is very important to you. And the Commission is worried about environmental laws, and it's also worried about the change in the environmental law in 2024, which allows a sort of loophole as it were for strategic investment. Do you think maybe you could look at that again?
PM Rama: Listen, it's good, it's very good that the Commission is concerned, and it's it can’t be otherwise. And by the way, we are negotiating to become members of the European Union, so just the idea that we can go in a direction with a project or with any project that does not fit with European standards is preposterous.
So, I'm just saying about the project, calm down and talk facts and common facts and look to facts. Don't be overexcited about telling how how catastrophic is everything…
Lindsey Hilsum: You seem quite personally hurt by these allegations…
PM Rama: No, no, no, no. I'm not hurt…
Lindsey Hilsum: Well, but you seem to take it very quite… It's interesting…
PM Rama: I'm not hurt…
Lindsey Hilsum: Because you seem to take it quite personally.
PM Rama: Listen, everything is personal. Whoever does his job or her job with passion has a personal thing with that. It's not… But I don't… I'm not hurt. This has helped me, I said it to you before, to me this protest the June one not this one has been both has been the affirmation that the country is in another level and on the other hand the very clear, a mirror to see what we need to reflect upon.
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