“At home, I have the toughest opposition I’ve ever seen”

"At home, I have the toughest opposition I've ever seen"

This interview with Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama has a history. After I, the ZEIT reporter Stefan Willeke, published an article in May 2024 in which I described the grumpy Rama, who was plating himself with his computer in the office, he called me and scolded me for more than 20 minutes. He was barely slowed down. How could I come up with the idea of portraying him so distorted! "You're not just insulting me, you're insulting Albania," he said. Whether I don't know what great progress the country is making in information technology. And then the prime minister is presented as a man who is unable to connect a computer cable. "Do you know what a big lie is about?" he asked, and answered himself, "Not from a thousand little lies, but from a thousand little half-truths." He said, "You ruined my day with your article. Now I want to make your day mess up with my call." Finally, he mentioned that Albania was a generous country. I will also be welcome there in the future. Albania is Edi Rama, and Edi Rama is Albania, that was the summary of his tirade. So I had little hope that Rama would agree to an interview. I contacted him. A few minutes later, he sent me a voice message in a good mood. "You're a good man," he said, "an honest man. Life is short, too short to carry things to people." He called me "my friend". Edi Rama, you have to leave it to him, has an amazing versatility. Since 2013 he has ruled the country continuously, in May he won the elections again, his fourth term has begun.

ZEITmagazin: Prime Minister, let's start with your height. You are one of the largest heads of government in Europe, right?

Edi Rama: Yes, I think so.

ZEITmagazin: Or in the whole world?

Edi Rama: I don't know, but definitely in Europe. Milo Ðukanović, the former president of Montenegro, was also very tall, but he is no longer in office.

ZEITmagazin: You used to be a basketball professional. They bring it to 2.02 meters.
Rama: No, at 1.98 meters.

ZEITmagazin: Like Friedrich Merz. Eight centimeters more than Donald Trump. Is it an advantage in politics to be big?

Edi Rama: It's possible. I know a statistic that says that the physically larger candidates win the election campaigns in about 80 percent.

EDI RAMA
Born in 1964, is Prime Minister of Albania and artist. His art was shown in the Haus der Kunst in Munich and twice at the Biennale in Venice. He lived in Paris for a few years. In 2000 he became mayor of Tirana and remained so for eleven years. Rama has been chairman of the Socialist Party of Albania since 2005, and has ruled the country since 2013. One of his election promises was to lead Albania into the EU by 2030. Rama is repeatedly said to be corruption and contacts with organized crime. He is said to have weakened state institutions and restricted press freedom.

Edi Rama, 61, chairman of the Socialist Party of Albania. When he was still mayor of the capital Tirana, from the year 2000 onwards, he had the facades of many houses painted brightly in the once gray city. Albania should look alive, attractive. He always saw himself as an artist who had brought it to political power. He once told ZEIT: "George Bush Junior was also a painter, but he was not as good as me." Rama decorated the walls of his office, where the interview takes place, with hundreds of computer-edited copies of his drawings. There he now sits in his leather armchair and smiles mischievously. Black shirt, fabric pants, light blue sneakers, red reading glasses in hand.

ZEITmagazin: Photos show you together with French President Emmanuel Macron or with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. And always stand out visually.

Edi Rama: With Rishi Sunak, the former Prime Minister of Britain, it was especially fun. Photos were taken in front of the famous 10 Downing Street in London, and the British press has very angry with Rishi because of our size difference. He looked so small. But as a child, I hated being so tall. It was terrible. This was in the communist era, when morning gymnastics in school became mandatory - an export product of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. I couldn't be overlooked, and the teacher always shouted, "Rama, wake up, move! Rama, do it differently!" Or when I laughed out loud in class - along with others - the teachers always noticed me first. I could never hide.

ZEITmagazin: Does political authority increase with body size?

Edi Rama: Not necessarily. Look at Georgia Meloni, the Italian head of government. She is small, but her charisma makes her look big. I think charisma is more crucial than height. One of my former basketball friends is taller than me. But because he has no charisma, he seems lost in the air at the top. Somehow people feel sorry for him.
Edi Rama is 1.98 meters tall, just as tall as Friedrich Merz. He used to play basketball, even in the national team.

ZEITmagazin: Did your physical strength help you when someone tried to kill you in 1997?

Edi Rama: That was the opinion of the doctors who treated me. The attack on me was very brutal.

ZEITmagazin: The attack took place in Tirana. They were 32 years old, an editor at the art academy and one of the contentious intellectuals who messed with the authorities in newspaper articles. At that time, the country was on the verge of serious political unrest.

Edi Rama: It happened on the 22nd. January 1997. I was on my way home with my girlfriend and one of my friends. At that time we lived in a small apartment in a suburb. It was a cold night after a rain shower, and Tirana was a completely different city at the time. The power was regularly out, at night the streets resembled black holes. Just before I reached the house where I lived, two dark silhouettes appeared. At first I thought I recognized one of the men holding a roll of paper in his hand: one of my students, a kind of bodybuilder. But no, in the roll of paper he was swung an iron rod. I fell to the ground under the blows and tried to protect my girlfriend by holding her behind my back with both hands. I saw the lights of the oil lamps flickering in the house windows, and I thought, "That's it, my life is over." The men left me - seemingly dead - in the mud. Blood flowed from my face, my mouth was also full of blood. I had several cracks in my scalp and nose.

ZEITmagazin: Who were these men?

Edi Rama: I still don't know exactly. But I know it was an attempted assassination attempt by the secret service of the then president. I had tried to organize a petition in which the government was to resign. In the hospital, the doctor who treated me said to me: "Without your good constitution as an athlete, it would have ended badly. Your height also helped you, some blows didn't catch you completely."

ZEITmagazin: How was your childhood and youth in Albania, in this poor, strictly sealed off country, whose population was oppressed by the dictator Enver Hodscha and which was called Europe's North Korea?

Edi Rama: We kids didn't have much, but outside we were free and pretty happy. We made soccer balls out of rubber remnuts. We played with old stones and pieces of wood. Or we sat on the side of the road and thought of guessing games: What number would be on the license plate of the next bus or truck that was passing by? You had to be patient, the streets were empty. There were hardly any cars, private cars were forbidden.

ZEITmagazin: Were you often afraid back then?

Edi Rama: Fear is the wrong word. Fear is a reaction to an event. And events were very rare at the time. It was a society of prefabricated answers. We were dominated by the awareness of living in narrow limits that we were not allowed to cross, because then something bad would happen. You must not do this, you must not say that under any circumstances. Avoid those people. We lived in two parallel worlds at the same time: there were things that you could only say at home because they were dangerous. Other things could only be expressed in public because they were ridiculous - propaganda.

ZEITmagazin: You once described yourself as a "troublemaker", as a troublemaker. What exactly do you mean by that?

Edi Rama: Even as a child, I was not easy. I always had a strong opinion, which I also wanted to express. In addition, I always liked to make other people laugh, even in school. And for that you need good sacrifices that you can raise, preferably a teacher or a tyrant. Authority figures are good victims. Then, of course, there was trouble.
In 2023, Edi Rama told a funny joke about the Russian ruler Vladimir Putin at the UN Security Council and thus silenced the representative of Russia. Rama loves self-stating. At a summit of European heads of state and government in May this year, he fell theatrically to his knees before Italian Prime Minister Meloni. With it, he decided last year to create asylum reception centres in Albania - and thus outside the EU - for people who had fled in boats across the Mediterranean to Italy.

ZEITmagazin: In your office you will find drawings, paintings, sculptures everywhere. Did you draw as a child?

Edi Rama: Yeah, since I was three years old, and I never stopped doing it. Drawing and painting have been part of my life for as long as I can remember.

ZEITmagazin: An artist at the head of a government: You once described it as "humor of the universe" that you became prime minister of all people.

Edi Rama: Absolute humor of the universe. In the past, I could never have imagined even entering an office, let alone working there. The first state office I ever entered was the office of the Albanian Minister of Culture. I was the Minister of Culture.

ZEITmagazin: Why this dislike for offices?

Edi Rama: In my eyes, offices at that time stood for the state, which oppressed its population. I would never have set foot in a state administration, never.

ZEITmagazin: Is there anything left of this hatred today?

Edi Rama: Of course not. I grew up under a regime that made its people hostages. The servants of this regime worked in offices.

ZEITmagazin: You never had any intend to go into politics?

Edi Rama: I fought against the narrow limits of my artistic life imposed on me, and so the Art Academy in Tirana became my first bastion against the regime. But I've always thought and said that politics is not my job. I never thought that politics would catch me. I wanted to live an independent, free life. As an artist in communism, I have experienced the opposite of the freedom I had always longed for. The sky in a painting had to be blue, not red or yellow. A person's skin had to be skin-colored. A chair was not allowed to look like an elephant. This narrow-mindedness shaped my very bad image of politicians at the time and allowed the anti-communist fighter to grow up in me.

ZEITmagazin: Would the young Edi Rama get along with the current Edi Rama?

Edi Rama: I would understand him, but he wouldn't understand me. The young Edi Rama was very convinced of his opinion and uncompromising. He was young and not well informed. He had not yet understood that politics is an art that moves things with talent and patience - while the state is a machine that holds us together by resisting change. The young Edi Rama believed that the state had to be abolished: anarchy.

ZEITmagazin: You longed for chaos?

Edi Rama: Not after chaos. I wanted the offices full of bureaucrats to disappear, but of course I had no alternative in mind. Only freedom and self-regulation - Utopia.

ZEITmagazin: And then, in 1998, you should become Minister of Culture of your country.

Edi Rama: That's when the humor of the universe was unloashed. When the Albanian government collapsed, I was still living as an artist in Paris. The new Prime Minister visited me there and suggested that I return to Albania and take over the direction of the radio. No, I said, I want to stay in my studio in France as a freelance artist and work in Albania only as a committed intellectual, not as a civil servant in some high office.

ZEITmagazin: How did you change your mind?

Edi Rama: Since the assassination on me, I felt like a piece of dirt. And I had decided not to return to Albania. A year later, however, I had a dream in Paris that haunts me to this day.

ZEITmagazin: A political dream?

Edi Rama: In my dream I was in my father's studio, who worked as a sculptor. But my father was not there, I looked for him in vain. A sudden gust of wind slammed the door of the studio, and I was trapped. Alone. Where was my father? When I woke up, I wanted to call my parents, but I didn't. Instead, one of my friends called me. He said to me, "Edi, I'm sorry, your father is dead. He died this morning in his studio."

ZEITmagazin: They then drove to the funeral.

Edi Rama: I was very sad about my father's death, but had to wait a whole day and a whole night before I could get on a plane to Tirana. And I shaved without shaving cream. Slowly and painfully I removed my beard with the razor. I waited for the night to pass, I wanted to feel the pain. I took off my earring, lent myself a tie from our ambassador in Paris and put on a suit to go straight to the funeral. Somehow I looked like a minister.

ZEITmagazin: After the funeral, the Albanian Prime Minister asked you if you wanted to join his government. And you agreed.

Edi Rama: Yes, the day of the funeral was the last day of his government reshuffle. When I came back from the funeral, I went to my parents' house to make coffee. The phone rang, the voice of the Prime Minister could be heard: "Mr. Minister of Culture, do you want to stay or leave again?" - "I stay," I replied. "Do you need some time to think?" he asked. "No," I replied, "for if I do, I'll leave again!" It was that simple. When everyone had left, I asked my mother: "What do you think, who will be Minister of Culture tomorrow?" She replied, "I don't care at all." When I asked, "What if I become one, Mom?" she replied, "It's been a long day, you're tired, your humor is off the side of it - go to bed." But when she realized I was serious, she started crying. My parents always wanted me to stay out of politics. "What's worse," she said in tears, "that your father has died or that you become a minister?" I said, "What should I do now, Mom?" And she replied, "Go immediately to the Prime Minister's house and tell him that you were confused about the death of your father - take back your word." I said it was a shame, I couldn't do that. "If you don't dare to step back now," she added, "you'll be stuck in this political mess for the rest of your life."

ZEITmagazin: But you did not withdraw, you became ministers. What are the worst moments in politics for you?

Edi Rama: The worst thing is to lose. This is what I experienced in 2009, for example, when I first ran for the office of Prime Minister and very narrowly lost. That was really painful.

ZEITmagazin: Do you have role models in politics? They have often spoken admiringly about Angela Merkel.

Edi Rama: Chancellor Angela Merkel was a purely rational politician. Among all the political figures I met, she was the only one who was not impressed by her charm. Angela has led from the background and directed politics behind the scenes. I'm sure she could be reckless if she wanted to get rid of political opponents to secure her power and keep her party under control. But on stage she was a very confident and calming force, who managed to create harmony and become the most admired face of Germany worldwide.

ZEITmagazin: You also once said that the war in Ukraine would not have broken out if Angela Merkel had still been Chancellor at the beginning of 2022.

Edi Rama: Angela would have found a way to prevent this conflict from escalating into a war of aggression. She had everything needed to find a solution with Putin - a compromise. I can't prove it, but I'm convinced. Unfortunately, no one foresaw the drama and the tragic consequences of the attack on Ukraine. Angela was different. She was very diligent and would not have underestimated the consequences of such a devastating conflict. Her experiences with the dictatorship in the GDR and her ability to imagine the former KGB man in the Kremlin would have helped her to see something that others in the West unfortunately did not see.

ZEITmagazin: How will the war in Ukraine end?

Edi Rama: At the moment, only the universe knows the answer.

ZEITmagazin: Donald Trump will play a key role.

Edi Rama: Trump has already played an important role by putting the idea of a ceasefire and peace on the table. But why did we need Trump to rediscover the word ceasefire after three years? When Viktor Orbán mentioned this word, he was treated like a leson. No one wanted to hear about a ceasefire, let alone peace. No one wanted to know anything about talks - let alone negotiations - with Russia, except Erdoğan. He tried several times, unsuccessfully, because no one supported his attempts. It was always about the absolute victory or the strategic defeat of Russia under the autopilot of the United States. Too bad.

ZEITmagazin: In his first term of office, Donald Trump was still criticized by you.

Edi Rama: I did that before, when Trump was still a presidential candidate. His first term was not so bad for the world. Today, it embodies a great opportunity for Europe. When Trump claimed after the assassination attempt on him that God had saved him for the good of America, that was only half the truth. God also saved his life so that Europe could wake up. Europe must wake up, hopefully on the right side. And it looks like this has already begun. Ursula von der Leyen is doing an excellent job of shaking up Europe, while Chancellor Merz'sfirst steps look very promising. A re-enherthed Germany is the key to a strengthened Europe.

ZEITmagazin: You are well acquainted with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who wants to act as a major investor in Albania: Kushner's company wants to have luxury quarters for rich tourists built on a hitherto untouched coastal strip and on an uninhabited island. Against this is the resistance of nature conservationists. What about this project?

Edi Rama: It's going forward. The project consists of two parts: on the one hand the coastal strip - or the peninsula, as we call it. It is privately owned. On the other hand, the island of Sazan, which belongs to the state. The peninsula has gone through the planning phase. We are still negotiating about the island of Sazan because of the terms of the partnership. The preliminary concepts look very promising. The list of companies that want to become part of these new frontiers of Mediterranean tourism is impressive, above all the Aman hotels.

ZEITmagazin: Some experts who deal with the structures of international criminal gangs are of the opinion that today every European government has to deal with organized crime. Do you see it that way?

Edi Rama: We fight organized crime like never before, and this is recognized by all competent authorities, but the accusations do not stop, and they are diverse. The opposition in Parliament has already accused me of all sorts of things, such as being homosexual and bisexual - which I am not. Apparently they are also convinced that I am a rapist …

ZEITmagazin: … and a drug dealer …

Edi Rama: Oh yeah, "drug dealer" is still the most romantic accusation.

ZEITmagazin: Have you ever taken drugs?

Edi Rama: Oh what. That wouldn't even be the worst. I'm supposed to have used violence against my mother and wife. My son is supposed to be the son of my father. All this nonsense was shouted around at rallies, written in newspapers, spread both offline and online - all lies. Followed by the election defeats of those who have invented these monstrosities. I'm used to it, but my family has suffered too much from it.

ZEITmagazin: Do you like journalists?

Edi Rama: Do I like journalists? A very general question. I admire independent journalism. But do I like all journalists? No. However, I know how terrible the world looks without journalists. Therefore, I am by no means her problem. My problem is somewhere else: many years ago I published my views in Albania's only independent newspaper and risked my life. This newspaper was burned down. So I belonged to the journalistic camp and I know how important it is. But that is not how some Albanian journalists saw me when I spoke about the great shortcomings of the media. They only saw my power, not my arguments. They shouted at the "autocrat" who is harassing the media. A long time ago, I gave up disagreeing with them or talking about them.

ZEITmagazin: You have excluded individual journalists from your press conferences.

Edi Rama: We only twice prevented anyone from taking the entire press conference hostage when he was talking endlessly on the microphone.
The 31-year-old television reporter Ambrozia Meta was caught in the face of Edi Rama last year during a press conference with Albanian journalists in front of running cameras. He pushed her away when she stubbornly asked him questions that he didn't like. Two years earlier, Rama had threatened the reporter with a "re-education measure". He also announced that he would not answer their questions for months. "All this is not so bad," says Ambrozia Meta today. "Bad is something else: Rama has made an economic dictatorship out of Albania. He distributes building permits to the straw men of criminals. He doesn't act like a socialist, even though he's her party leader. He does nothing for the poor and the old. He competes most to get his place in the history books - as the father of the nation." Edi Rama is increasingly allowing press conferences at all. Instead, he answers by video to selected questions that citizens are allowed to ask him.

ZEITmagazin: A politician from your environment, the former mayor of Tirana, was arrested a few months ago in his office - among other things for bribery and money laundering. Has the corruption reached your government?

Edi Rama: It goes without saying that people at different levels of government are also affected as soon as corruption is involved. So the question is not whether corruption exists, but what we do to fight it and reduce its influence on the government. And I am proud that we have done something great - radical - a judicial reform that, for the first time in our history since Albania's independence in 1912, has brought high-ranking officials before an independent judiciary and led to indictments or condemnations. On the other hand, I believe that an organization, a company or a ruling majority is not judged on whether one or more of its members are suspected of corruption or whether corruption is being investigated, but on how they react in such a case. For decades, the response was to form a protective shield and provide political support accordingly. We've broken up with that. Our party is not a shield for anyone, our majority in parliament is only the shield of the independent judiciary.

ZEITmagazin: You have never denied that corruption in Albania is still a major problem. Will it be a decisive obstacle in the effort to be admitted to the EU?

Edi Rama: Our fight against this is an important guarantee of our real will to become a member of the EU. Our successes in this fight have been praised by the EU with much praise.
Edi Rama has managed to put Albania on the stage of European politics: a mostly unnoticed country with 2.7 million inhabitants, which now attracts more than ten million tourists from abroad year after year. In many cities, modern buildings are being built, start-ups are being founded. But there is also something that Rama is reluctant to talk about: drug trafficking, money laundering, government crime. "Edi Rama has worked with organized crime from the beginning," says the renowned Albanian journalist Enton Abilekaj, who initially viewed Rama benevolently. It began with a policy that promoted the cultivation and trade in cannabis. "He needs the criminals to stay in power," the journalist said. "They get him political support." Andi Bushati, who heads one of the few independent online media in Albania, puts it this way: "Rama's balance sheet is negative. His diplomatic successes are only a facade that legitimizes his autocratic power. Rama appoints unknown ministers without having consulted anyone. He is at the head of a party, but for ten years he has been renounced the election of the chairman. His style of government? "The form covers the content."
Even sharper, Fatos Lubonja goes to court with Rama. The 74-year-old writer, who spent 17 years in prison during the dictatorship, is a prominent spokesman for the left in Albania. He used to be friends with Rama, today the author says: "Rama is a narcissist. He does not accept criticism. He controls the police and the judiciary. It's going like Putin." The biggest problem, however, is the Albanians themselves: "In other countries, someone like Rama has long been in hospital to be cured. Here he can govern."

ZEITmagazin: How do you explain that the writer Fatos Lubonja, who was once your friend, is now one of your sharpest critics?

Edi Rama: We were very close friends when we fought together in civil society. But since I moved to the opposing camp of day-to-day politics, Fatos has declared me a traitor to the matter. Since then, he's mainly been busy proving what an obnerous traitor I am. I respect him and feel sorry for him.

ZEITmagazin: What was your biggest mistake as head of government?

Edi Rama: Oh, I won't comment on that until I leave office.

ZEITmagazin: They have temporarily banned TikTok in Albania after the killing of a 14-year-old boy in a stabbing was linked to the use of the social media platform.

Edi Rama: I didn't ban TikTok forever, but parents should have the opportunity to better control the platform. Access to videos with violent or disgusting content must be prevented. Parents should know what their children are doing on such a platform. And I must say: To my surprise, the people at TikTok were very hard to understand and respond to our concerns.

ZEITmagazin: How did the parents react to the ban?

Edi Rama: The support for the TikTok ban was overwhelming. 95 percent of parents were in favor. Most of them even advocated banning all social media.
Every now and then Edi Rama takes a sip from a water bottle. When telling stories, he is reluctant to be interrupted. He bypasses some inquiries by simply speaking louder, as if he had to drown out noise. In his armchair he slides further and further down, after an hour and a half he almost lies down.

ZEITmagazin: The power is a wild animal. This is how you once formulated one of your findings.

Edi Rama: Yes, the Force is a very dangerous animal. A wild beast. It is always there and ready to devour the inside of a person. Or to deform him. This animal carries many temptations in itself. For example, you can immediately fire someone you don't like or even take revenge on them. You fight the messenger instead of dealing with an unpleasant message. Suppose you can't get along with an employee. You can fire him - quite simply. Maybe he'll fight back. Then you can ask: "Who is the father of this guy?" And you learn that the father is with the police. "Fire him," one can order. Again very simple. And so you become someone else.

ZEITmagazin: What follows for you?

Edi Rama: You always have to remember where you're from. I never let my people carry my luggage. When I travel privately, I do not fly business class. My wife drives her own car. At home, we have no employees who are paid by the state. For gifts that I receive, but that belong to the state and not to the person in the office of the prime minister, I have set up the first museum. Small big things - to stay as normal as possible under the skin.

ZEITmagazin: Is there anyone you listen to in such questions?

Edi Rama: Some people think I won elections too many times because my opposition is too weak. These people have no idea. Because at home I have the toughest opposition I've ever experienced. She's waiting for me when I get home from work in the evening - my wife. I eat something, lie down on the couch, choose a movie to relax. And after the first ten minutes of the film, question time begins - from couch to couch. My wife is an economist, works for international organizations, she knows her way. She knows numbers, data, facts. The survey continues, so I have to press the repeat button of the film several times. This is really intense. If my wife continues until the knock-out, it's well after midnight, and I have to beg her to show mercy. I can assure you: if you have such an opposition at home and listen to it, you will become unbeatable outside your own four walls. Then you can even become King of Albania!

https://www.zeit.de/zeit-magazin/2025/32/edi-rama-karriere-opposition-macht-frau