Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama stated in Munich that the U.S. government has not yet made any request for the relocation of Palestinian refugees to Albania, but the answer would still be “No!”
“I didn’t understand why you desperately asked me to be part of this panel on the Middle East,” was one of the first sentences Prime Minister Edi Rama said during an event held as part of the Munich Security Conference on Saturday afternoon (February 15), titled “Beyond Conflict: Evaluating the Paths and Obstacles Leading to Sustainable Peace in the Middle East.”
The war in Gaza and the Israel-Palestine conflict were the topics of this session, where people from politics, academia, civil society, and the media filled nearly the entire hall at “Amerikahaus” in Munich.
Scheduled speakers for the panel also included Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg and Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Faisal Bin Farhan Al Saud, who canceled their attendance at the last minute and were replaced by German politician Armin Laschet, of the CDU party, and former Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
Panelists also included Suzanne Maloney, vice president and director of the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution in the U.S., an expert on the Middle East, particularly Iran, and a former advisor to both Republican and Democratic U.S. governments.
Palestinians in Albania?
U.S. President Donald Trump recently stated at a press conference that Albania is on the list of countries he is considering for relocating Palestinian refugees.
“No one from the Trump administration has asked us, but even if they did—though it’s not logical because we are in the middle of Europe—how can hundreds of thousands come to us? This is a logistical issue, and we are a small country. But this will not happen, at least not during my term,” said Rama.
Recalling Albania’s welcoming of Jews during World War II, accepting 7,000 mujahideen, and sheltering Afghans who fled after the Taliban regained power in 2021, Rama emphasized that the situation with Palestinians is different.
“We deeply regret the fate of these people, who are victims of one of the cruelest dictatorships in history, Hamas, but we are not part of this history, and we will never be,” Rama declared, adding that even the numbers matter.
Trump’s idea of relocating Palestinians to various countries is also seen as entirely wrong by Suzanne Maloney. “It’s not normal at all that these people are forced to leave their land,” she stated.
“From branch to branch”
Former Lebanese Prime Minister Mikati said, “The EU has left a very large vacuum in the Middle East,” and that EU leaders need to be more present in the region. Laschet, for his part, commented, “Europe cannot help, but it must be part of the process.”
About a month ago, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock visited Syria, a country that emerged from a long war and the oppressive regime of Bashar Al-Assad. This meeting was cited as a positive example of Europe’s role and support in the Middle East, an aspect that Rama disagreed with.
While Laschet defended the role of Germany and the European Union in the region, Rama surprised the attendees by reducing Germany’s top diplomat to her appearance. “She is beautiful” was Rama’s comment about Minister Baerbock’s visit to Syria.
The majority of the panel discussion was spent with Prime Minister Rama completely veering off-topic. He focused again on the European Union and, while mocking how it functions, he said the EU is a structure that “creates new rules and regulations every week.”
Rama even occasionally took on the role of moderator, not leaving much room for the actual moderator of the session, Mayssoun Zein Al Din, who was often put in an uncomfortable position by the frequent disregard Rama showed toward her during the conversation, where different questions were asked, and he responded to others.
