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The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, declared during her visit to Albania that the students of the College of Europe Campus in Tirana will be the leaders of today’s and tomorrow’s Europe.
Der Leyen participated in the opening ceremony of the academic year of the College of Europe Campus in Tirana, where Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama was also present.
Earlier, they had a bilateral meeting and a media appearance in which Der Leyen congratulated Albania for the progress made and also talked about the progress of negotiations.
“Last week together we opened the group-chapter of fundamental issues and discussed that if we do a very good job then all group-chapters can be opened by the end of next year,” she said.
While speaking at the ceremony marking the start of the new academic year, she noted that the College of Europe is much more than a simple university.
“This was one of those first bricks of European integration, before coal and steel, it all started with a college,” declared Von der Leyen.
Von der Leyen stated that the European family is preparing to expand.
“We are at a historic moment, as our family is preparing for its reunification, a union in which all the peoples living between the Black Sea and the Adriatic will come together,” she declared.
Albania will receive more than 920 million euros from the growth plan.
For his part, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama emphasized that Albania has no “plan B,” except EU membership.
Rama emphasized that “sometimes democracy seems not to function well, but for the sake of this going against the EU, envisioning and predicting a future outside the EU is simply senseless.”
“Everything that makes you angry or undecided or disappointed with the EU should serve not to fight or join battles against the EU, but to fight back for a better EU,” Rama addressed the students of the College of Europe in Tirana. (October 24)
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