This Thursday, Prime Minister Edi Rama spoke at the presentation of the competition for another tower expected to be added to Tirana, exactly where “Tajvani” is today.

Rama said that the government does not carry out projects by forcibly removing people from their homes, as is alleged.

The head of government also added that foreign architects do not come to Albania to do things outside standards, which they cannot do in their own countries.

Rama: The absurdity that in our projects we forcibly remove people from their homes to impose projects that international architects carry out without taking people into account. It is an unjustified lack of respect for the personalities of people from a world where there is more sense of responsibility than there is in their commentators. Forced removal from a home to develop a private project has never happened in Albania, for any reason. And in no case has any legitimate owner been prevented from exercising their freedom if they want to develop. We have challenges from time to time with squatters of other people’s properties who are part of the legalization process. We have never sided with the owner or the developer if they have not guaranteed that the person living there receives a rental contract for a certain number of years paid by the developer.

And then the height of this approach is that foreign architects come to Albania to do art-washing bulldozer politics and to carry out things that are outside standards. The truth is completely different. We have constantly had discussions about regulation and obstacles in urban development; this does not mean that we build without rules in Albania. Or that we do something that is unacceptable in other places. In fact, there is something very clear to me in all this aggressive approach to this process: jealousy. The jealousy of mediocre people and of people who cling to nationalism, to their passport, who cling to the fact that they are part of the local community, and who do not cling to their profession, to arguments and to the opportunity to be competitive. There are many young architects and professionals who are part of this transformation. This makes Albania not the country where local architects are excluded, but one where they grow professionally with architects who are at the highest level of thought and work. Today Albania and Tirana are the largest open-air university. The construction of towers is so complex and requires so many professionals that we must admit that we do not have the capacity and knowledge to do this. We have seen the attempts. We are not dealing with a community of businessmen, but with a community of knowledge.

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