Prime Minister Edi Rama took part in the regional conference of the Western Balkan countries focused on a shared vision: digital transformation, legal security of property, and European integration. During his speech, Rama stated that the success of digital transformation is a defining element for Albania’s progress toward the European Union.

He emphasized that technology has brought many benefits and has enabled the country to make a leap forward and look toward the future with a different spirit. Regarding property issues, he stressed that it is a complicated and complex process.

Rama underlined that he does not believe there is another country in the world or region where property rights have been under such pressure. According to him, over the last 35 years, Albania has had to deal with an extremely complex situation.

“One of the most difficult challenges we have faced was the transition from a country with entirely state-owned property, where private property was not allowed and even owning a private vehicle was prohibited. We then moved into a situation where the state completely lost control over the territory. There was an extraordinary demographic boom after the fall of the communist regime.

At the same time, we had the former owners, as the time had come for them to reclaim their property and for property to be returned to them. On the other hand, we had to confront a complete onslaught and an extraordinary number of developments.

Beyond this, although for mysterious reasons the communist regime did not burn the property archives but instead protected them very securely, what happened to the archives in the 1990s was a true catastrophe. In this context, we inherited yet another layer of property-related issues — a proliferation of falsified property documents. Solving this is a challenge that involves very difficult compromises,” he said, among other things.