Hello, I'm Edi, Prime Minister of Albania.
Wow, and if I suddenly sound like I speak your language perfectly well, but just a little AI magic — but trust me, Al's charm.
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It is the honor of welcoming the Prime Minister of the Republic of Albania, His Excellency Edi Rama.
Have you ever heard of a law of the land that proclaims our houses belong to God and the guest? Well, such a law was written in medieval Albania and has since become an integral part of the Albanian way of life. It is the essence of what we call Besa — a term that in English sounds like a harmonious blend of Albania and hospitality, but in Albanian it means going above and beyond to honor our name, our home, and our guest.
Yes, the pinnacle of Besa was demonstrated during World War II, when Albania protected its Jewish guests, becoming the only country in Europe to have more Jews after the war than before. We were and still are a nation of Muslims, Christian Orthodox, and Catholics, yet when faced with the choice between the Jews and the devil, our ancestors stood firmly with the Jews, risking their lives by refusing to hand over a single soul to the Nazis.
Whoever knocks at an Albanian house door represents the will of God, and by opening the door we welcome a guest that is treated like God. So if you want to feel how it is to be God, come to Albania.
And if you want to meet God as a taxi driver, go to Greece.
Germany has recently been the center of global attention due to its elections, but here at the ITB the choices are far more diverse, and I dare say more entertaining. This week in Berlin, the world is invited to choose between Albania or Morocco, Spain or Portugal, Greece or the Maldives, China or Japan, and so many other countries participating in this World Cup of tourism. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the only kind of competition where the Deutsche Mannschaft doesn't start as the favorite.
Let me share a short — I hope — although having a Balkan man speaking is never short enough for the German standards, but still a true story. When the first edition of this fair took place in 1967, I guess, or '66, whatever, same period, Albania welcomed a mere 1,000 tourists, most of them from East Germany — all staunch Marxist-Leninists who found the DDR too unreliable, too liberal, and too degenerate.
In fact, the only West Germans who visited Albania that year were the German national football team, led by a legend like Franz Beckenbauer. To everyone's surprise, they managed only a 0-0 draw in Tirana after trashing us 6-0 in Dortmund. That draw was the only blemish in an eight-game streak that nearly caused Germany its place in the Euros, but that's another story.
What remained unchanged for a quarter of a century was that the only West Germans who visited Albania until 1990 were the players of the Deutsche Mannschaft. In total, they came four times and made fewer than 100 tourists. During that period, Albania was the North Korea of Europe, and the best we could do in terms of tourism was to reach an average of far less than 5,000 visitors per year, and all Marxist-Leninists, of course.
As I mentioned this morning at the ITB opening press conference, there was even a barber shop at the airport back then, with a very special mission. We became the North Korea of Europe after we left the Soviet Empire, and we married with China in the worst period of Chinese history, the Cultural Revolution. And from that we learned a lot about how to play devil — and one of the games was no beards, no long hairs.
So that barber in our international airport had his mission to cut the beards and the long hairs of all the tourists that came with these Marxist-Leninist groups to visit Albania. So Karl Marx could not enter Marxist Albania without shaving his beard and cutting his hair.
When I took office in 2013, the numbers were vastly different from 1990, of course, but even then they pale in comparison to today's figures: a couple of million visitors versus the 12 million we welcomed last year. It's 12x up, it's not 10x, but the great thing is that even at 2 million, it remained 10x — still a lot — and the even greater number we are seeing this year, which has already set new records for January and February.
A few years ago, the number of German tourists visiting Albania annually hovered around 100,000. Last year, the number soared to nearly 400,000. But we want more, because Germans are the best kind of tourists.
When people around the world think of Germans, the first thing that comes to mind is their reputation as hard workers. But in reality, Germans are also the world's top holidaymakers. They outpace the Chinese and everyone else in terms of annual tourist numbers — not because they are more numerous, but because they rest more days in total. So whoever thinks that Germans are not very clever and they are just working is wrong. Germans are also resting more than the others.
And we want them because they drink a lot of beer, yes, they also eat a lot when they visit us. And here is the thing: while there may be more to it in Germany, the flavors of Albania are much better, and I'm putting it very mildly. Let's start, for example, with the coffee. Compare the dark brown liquid you call coffee here with the best espresso out of Rome, and trust me — trust me, that's the least painful comparison I could make, just not to offend our hosts.
But seriously now, why should Germans visit Albania? If you don't want to take my word for it, then trust their speaker — which is ready to be unfair to me, by the way — but describe Albania as a must-visit destination, whether for the Bora Bora-like beaches of the Riviera, the ancient ruins of Butrint, or hiking through the dramatic landscapes of Theth and Valona.
Or take another German big source of news, which again was not always very keen to write good things about us: 'Albania is no longer a hidden gem. In 2025, it will become a trending destination for sun and beach lovers. Unlike the overcrowded Mediterranean regions, in Albania you can find quiet beaches and enjoy unspoiled nature.' In fact, Albania is currently the fastest-growing tourism destination in Europe, and in the UNWTO chart is ranking number one in the world after a few years, hand in hand with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but without the World Cup and without Mecca.
I agree with Bild: we are no longer a hidden gem. We are rapidly becoming a tourism powerhouse, at least when measured per capita. Our record-breaking growth — an 80% increase in arrivals over only the last five years — proves that Albania is a rising star, capturing the world's attention.
Berlin, Dortmund, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Karlsruhe, Baden-Baden, Leipzig, Nuremberg, Stuttgart, and Düsseldorf all have direct connections to Albania, and many with daily low-cost flights. Germans like to spend a lot, but also are great savers, so they love low cost — I know it — and during big tourist season even more destinations are added.
With a perfect mix of affordability, stunning landscapes, and authentic experience, Albania has become one of Europe's best travel destinations. And this is only the beginning. It's the beginning because we are looking forward to a brighter economic future and a sustainable growth that will be shaped not only by our appeal as a travel destination, but also by our role as a model for eco-friendly tourism and high-end experiences.
In the last decades, we increased 2.5 times our GDP and more than two times our income per capita. And now we are adding more to our country of experiences, where in only 28,000 square kilometers one can find two seas, nine rivers, a lot of lakes, many valleys, beautiful mountains, and can travel within our tiny country perimeter to experience the Mediterranean, the Swiss Alps, the northern Europe, the burning sun, and the freshest nights during the hot summer.
But more than that, we are hosting the European Political Community in May. All the leaders of all our continent are coming to Albania, and then the famous G7 Italia, and then we have our capital as the Mediterranean capital of culture and dialogue, and so on and so forth.
So to us, having this spotlight at ITB Berlin 2025 is something that nobody — truly nobody — in our country would imagine to happen in our lifetime. And it's not only happening, but it's a very humbling experience and a very, very inspiring recognition. And I want to truly thank, first and foremost, the ITB for having been so gracious in allowing us to have such a reward, and in giving us something we Albanians have fought for since so long a time: the possibility to show to the world that we are completely different from what the stigma of so many years in the German and international media has been about us.
And to conclude, let me say that for half a century, like Union Berlin, we didn't get the chance to play in the West. But now, to everyone's surprise, Union is outperforming Hertha, in my understanding. So this is what we ask: we don't ask for favors, we ask just for a fair play.
The first recorded German traveler to Albania was Arnold von Harf, who, during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the 15th century, stopped in our country. He was so captivated by our unique tradition and language that he documented dozens of typical Albanian words. These words are an extraordinary testament of our rich heritage, part of which is also our language, which is a direct derivation from the Sanskrit and a completely unique branch of the Indo-European tree of languages.
And just to give you a flavor, I'm saying thank you in my language: Faleminderit.
And there is yet another final reason to come to Albania, especially if you are a German: Albania is never boring than you.
[Applause]
