Albania’s PM Edi Rama: Is Europe ready for its next Helmut Kohl moment?

Ladies and Gentlemen, when one is invited to speak at occasions like this, convention requires beginning with a familiar sentence: “It is a great pleasure and a distinct honour to join you this evening.”

But I will not say it that way. Because I did not come here merely because this is an important gathering. I came because of a rather unusual convergence of three things: The city where we meet, the moment in which we meet, and the subject I was asked to address.

Berlin, the place where perhaps the greatest geopolitical transformation of our lifetime became reality. And not only because a wall fell. But because, after the wall fell, a leader emerged with the courage to understand what history demanded next. Helmut Kohl did not see German reunification as an administrative challenge. He saw it as a geopolitical necessity. Against caution. Against skepticism. Against the conventional wisdom of the time. He decided that Germany should become one country again. History proved him right.

The search for a new ‘Helmut Kohl’-moment

I begin with Berlin and with Kohl not because this audience needs reminding of Germany’s importance to Europe. I do so because I increasingly believe that Europe itself is approaching a similar moment. A moment when continuing to manage reality through procedures, hesitations and inherited assumptions is becoming more dangerous than taking strategic decisions. A moment that calls for what I would describe as a new Helmut Kohl moment.

Because Europe today faces a question remarkably similar to the one Germany faced then: Whether reunification is merely an aspiration to be administered indefinitely, or a necessity that must finally be accomplished. And this brings me directly to the subject I was asked to address: Albania’s European future: reform, resilience and innovation in a changing geopolitical landscape.

Konrad Adenauer, one of the founding fathers of modern Europe, once wisely noted: “European unity was a dream of a few. It became a hope for many. Today it is a necessity for all of us.” I believe those words have never been more relevant than they are today. Because we meet at a time when the rules-based international order is under severe pressure.

War has returned to Europe. Strategic competition has become global. Technology is not only transforming economies, political systems and societies at a speed never witnessed before; it is also transforming the very way we relate to one another and experience everyday life. Demographic decline is reshaping entire regions, and a severe demographic winter threatens Europe’s future.

Economic security has become inseparable from national security. Political resilience has become inseparable from informational resilience. And Europe is no longer the continent of perpetual peace and prosperity it believed itself to be until recently. Europe has once again become a great power confronted by great challenges at one of the great crossroads of its history.

In such circumstances, strategic hesitation becomes a luxury and fragmentation becomes a vulnerability.

The ‘greatest painter among prime ministers’

Dear friends, You all know that I am the greatest painter among prime ministers. Some would say among chancellors too. But it does not take a great painter to see that what is left out of a composition often reveals more than what is put in.

A few months ago, the European Council endorsed the most ambitious integration blueprint since Jacques Delors: one Europe, one market. A highly ambitious document. Necessary. Forward-looking. Strategic. Yet one thing was missing: the Western Balkans. A region entirely surrounded by the European Union. A region physically located at the heart of Europe. A region absent from Europe’s vision of itself. Like an empty space at the centre of the canvas.

Europe painting a self-portrait that increasingly resembles Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”. Particularly strange when that very space sits on one of Europe’s oldest strategic corridors.

More than two thousand years ago, the Romans built the Via Egnatia. It connected East and West. Markets with markets. People with people. Power with power. The Romans understood something that we occasionally forget: connectivity is not infrastructure. Connectivity is power. And a system is only as strong as its missing link.

Europe needs Albania

Twenty centuries later Europe is discussing energy corridors, digital corridors, military mobility corridors, strategic supply chains and technological sovereignty.Yet the region through which many of those corridors naturally pass remains outside the architecture.

The energy corridors Europe needs cross our geography. The digital networks Europe wants require our territory. The critical minerals Europe has suddenly rediscovered as strategic lie beneath our soil. China understands this. Russia certainly understands it. Europe understands it too. Yet sometimes forgets it when writing its own plans.

And guess what? Via Egnatia crossed the continent exactly where Albania is today. Albania has opened all thirty-three negotiating chapters faster than any candidate country in the history of enlargement. We are advancing with fierce determination. Our objective is clear.

To conclude negotiations by 2027, to become a full member of the European Union before the end of this decade. And let me be equally clear. For Albania, accession is not simply about entering a club. It is not about receiving funds. It is not about acquiring institutional ornaments.

It is about transforming our state, our institutions and our way of thinking. It is about completing the most profound democratic transformation in our national history. I have been among the first voices from our region to advocate the abundant benefits of gradual integration. But gradual integration cannot become perpetual postponement. It cannot become another waiting room.

Is reunifying Europe a ‘truly strategic necessity’?

Because if reunifying Europe is truly a strategic necessity, then the Western Balkans cannot remain trapped between the objective assessments of the Commission and the subjective anxieties of member states. That contradiction is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. The solution is neither complicated nor costly. Bring us into Europe’s strategic architecture now. Give us seats before giving us vetoes. Give us participation before giving us commissioners. Give us responsibility before giving us every institutional ornament. Bring us into the Energy Union. Into the Digital Union. Into common security frameworks. Into common financial instruments. Into common supply chains.

Because Europe cannot seriously speak about strategic autonomy while maintaining a strategic vacuum at its centre.

Helmut Kohl did not ask whether reunification was administratively perfect. He asked whether continued division remained strategically acceptable. That is a profoundly different question. And perhaps it is the question Europe should ask itself today.

‘History rarely moves because bureaucracy is ready’

History rarely moves because bureaucracy is ready. History moves because leaders decide it must. And Europe cannot afford to spend its time revisiting the famous Byzantine debate about the sex of the angels while the walls of Constantinople are already shaking from the storm gathering outside. Ladies and gentlemen, Europe’s future will not be decided only by geopolitics. It will also be decided by innovation.

And the next great contest among nations will not be fought primarily through territory. It will be fought through intelligence: artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, scientific research, technological sovereignty, the capacity to innovate faster than competitors. Artificial intelligence is not merely another technological revolution, it is rapidly becoming the infrastructure upon which economic power, military capability, scientific leadership and democratic resilience will increasingly depend.

Sovereignty requires scale

For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, technological leadership may determine not only who becomes wealthier, but who remains sovereign. Europe understands this. That is why it increasingly speaks about technological sovereignty. But sovereignty requires scale. And scale requires integration. No continent can seriously aspire to lead the AI revolution while voluntarily leaving millions of citizens, thousands of engineers, strategic geography and untapped talent outside its innovation ecosystem. Europe cannot win the race of the twenty-first century with one hand tied behind its back.

For its part, Albania is pursuing one of the most ambitious digital transformations in Europe. We are redesigning public administration around technology. We have digitalised 95 % of public services. Reducing bureaucracy has become an obsession. We are deploying artificial intelligence across government. Not because technology is fashionable. But because innovation has become the shortest road from the periphery to the centre.

A greener, more digital and more innovative Albania is good not only for Albania. It is good for Europe. Because Europe’s competitiveness will increasingly depend on mobilising all of its talent, all of its geography and all of its potential. And the Western Balkans are not merely candidates for membership. We are contributors to Europe’s future competitiveness. The sooner Europe begins to see enlargement not as a concession but as an investment, the stronger Europe itself will become.

This brings me to what I increasingly consider one of the greatest challenges facing Europe. A challenge less visible than military threats. Less dramatic than economic crises. Yet potentially just as dangerous. The corrosion of democracy itself. For decades we assumed that more information would automatically produce better-informed citizens. That assumption turned out to be wrong. Today lies travel far faster than facts.

‘Outrage spreads far faster than evidence’

Outrage spreads far faster than evidence. Algorithms reward anger far more generously than truth. Digital mobs can become more influential than democratic institutions. Entire realities can be manufactured before facts have time to leave the ground. And perhaps the greatest paradox of our age is that we increasingly confuse freedom of speech with freedom of reach.

They are not the same thing. Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of democracy. Freedom of reach is an unprecedented technological power that no democracy has ever had to confront before. Throughout history, every propaganda system has relied on the same principle: suffocate genuine freedom of speech while maximizing the reach of its own falsehoods. The tools have changed. The mechanism has not. What is different today is that technology has industrialized reach.

A lie no longer needs a ministry. A falsehood no longer needs a newspaper. A manipulation no longer needs a state broadcaster. An algorithm can now accomplish in minutes what propaganda machines once required years to achieve. In the past, authoritarian systems restricted freedom of speech in order to monopolize reach. Today democratic societies often protect unlimited reach in the name of freedom of speech. Yet these are not the same thing. Freedom of speech protects citizens from censorship. Freedom of reach provides unprecedented power to those who manipulate perception.

And so we face an uncomfortable question. How much longer can democratic societies continue treating this phenomenon as if it were merely an extension of free speech Because when coordinated manipulation, bot networks, algorithmic amplification and industrial-scale disinformation shape public perception, influence elections, destabilize institutions and distort reality itself, we are no longer discussing only speech. We are discussing power. We are discussing security. We are discussing sovereignty.

Europe is investing hundreds of billions of euros in military capabilities, air defence systems, cyber security, critical infrastructure protection and strategic autonomy. All of that is necessary. But what value will all these shields have if our societies remain defenceless against the systematic manipulation of human minds? What value will military resilience have if democratic resilience collapses? What value will territorial security have if citizens progressively lose the ability to distinguish facts from fabrications?

Europe needs a ‘shield for the age of algorithms’

The next great security challenge may not be an army crossing a border, but an avalanche of falsehoods powerful enough to crack the very architecture of democratic life. And unlike conventional attacks, the objective is not to occupy territory. The objective is to occupy perception, to weaken trust, to divide societies, to paralyse democratic decision-making, to make citizens doubt everything except their own tribe.

Europe does not need only a shield from missiles. It also needs a shield for the age of algorithms. And if I had to choose where to begin, I would begin there. In recent weeks my own country experienced a vivid example. A proposed tourism development project on Albania’s coast suddenly became the centre of an international digital storm. Environmental catastrophe was presented as an established fact. Corruption was declared proven before any proof existed. Conspiracies multiplied by the hour. Claims became headlines. Headlines became truths. Truths became dogmas. And anyone asking for evidence was treated as a suspect.

I mention this not because the project itself matters to Europe – it does. But what matters even more is what the episode revealed. Outrage generated millions of impressions before facts had a chance to speak. Narratives travelled around the world before documented procedures could travel across a single room. This is no longer an Albanian phenomenon. It is a European phenomenon. An American phenomenon. A democratic phenomenon. And if democracies fail to defend the distinction between facts and fiction, between scrutiny and hysteria, between criticism and digital lynching, they will lose, sooner rather than later, something far more valuable than any single political argument. Trust.

‘When trust disappears, institutions weaken’

And when trust disappears, institutions weaken. When institutions weaken, mainstream politics loses legitimacy. When legitimacy erodes, demagogues flourish. The centre weakens. The margins expand. Politics becomes a competition in escalation rather than a search for solutions. What appears extreme today is challenged tomorrow by something even more extreme. Democracy does not usually collapse because people stop voting. Democracy collapses when citizens stop believing that truth exists independently of tribal affiliation.

That is how democratic systems are hollowed out from within. Not through tanks. Not through coups. But through the gradual replacement of reality with competing tribes of alternative realities. This is why Europe’s future depends not only on military strength, economic competitiveness or technological innovation. It also depends on our ability to defend reality itself. To defend evidence. To defend reason. To defend the difficult but indispensable discipline of facts.

‘Europe today needs courage. The courage of Adenauer. The courage of Kohl’

Ladies and gentlemen, Europe today needs courage. The courage of Adenauer. The courage of Kohl. The courage to reunify. The courage to innovate. The courage to recognise that enlargement is not charity. It is strategy. And the courage to defend democracy not only against those who attack it from outside, but also against the slow corrosion that can weaken it from within. Albania is ready. Ready to reform. Ready to innovate. Ready to contribute. Ready to carry its share of responsibility.

But the real question is not whether Albania is ready. The real question is whether Europe is ready. Ready to complete the unfinished work of its own history. Ready to reunify its geography with its strategic imagination. Ready to act on necessity rather than manage postponement. Because history rarely waits for perfect procedures. It waits for leadership willing to recognise the moment and act accordingly. And here, in Berlin, where Germany once found the courage to peacefully reunite what history had forcefully divided, the question before Europe becomes crystal clear: is Europe ready for its next Helmut Kohl moment?