1996 - A decisive year for the future of democracy
Message from President Berisha on the occasion of New Year 1996
With a message I wish to convey, on behalf of the President, greetings from casa to all Albanians for the joy of their families and compatriots [?].
1996 - A decisive year for the
future of democracy
With a message I wish to
convey, on behalf of the President,
greetings from casa to all Albanians
for the joy of their families
and also for our compatriots
in exile. With all of you,
nobility and compatriots,
fellow citizens wherever you may be,
on the edges of your lives, with our friends
and partners, in local places or in
the lost villages or the persecuted clergy,
in hospitals, in prisons or
in exile, in Albania or outside
it. Happy New Year 1996!
I wholeheartedly wish you all
that this new year may begin as full as possible
of hope, achievements, hope and
understanding, and prosperity
for each citizen, for the ordinary
citizen of Albania let us wish you
success and together as the old year
we make democracy.
On the first day of this New Year we
are given an added desire to
sign our gratitude for what each
of us has achieved during the year
that has passed and to formulate the most
sincere wishes for the projects that will be
built ahead.
The year 1995 was another year of
successes, thanks to which, with effort and
sacrifice, with work and courage,
with dignity the Albanian family managed
freer, with prosperity,
and perhaps with peace, to emerge
as a society unlike any before. The year
1996 for us gives a blessed year.
Free are the blessed days.
The year 1995 was the year of
historical discoveries
The year 1995 was the year of
historical changes in the life of
Albania. It marked
the fourth year of the development of
democracy, of the consolidation of the rule of law and the market economy. In Albania, for the first time
our society came alive, Albanian
society marked 4 years of life of
freedom under democracy and with
the development of a program
solidary in spring
in the great epoch of this end-of-century
the fields and mountains stood while
guiding our steadfast center
in the determination that we would give it
more and more, to the free will of
each, to our family and
citizen a better life.
Countries may be poor
or rich, but we proved with
deeds that the human conditions in Europe
are not those of deepening poverty,
that citizens are praised, the brilliance of
the further democracy.
The development of democracy,
therefore, not as a country with territory,
consolidated democracy, is
the highest goal and the most brilliant
answer that all
our citizens and our future,
the rule of law, the human being,
the greatest distinctiveness of man,
harmony with all the cultures and
faiths of the Islamic, Bektashi,
Catholic and Orthodox church,
are for the democracy of Albania.
Hope that together with stre
therefore, respect for action,
determination and faith,
the democracy of our country will
continue further also to
enter the unknown, the more
difficult, on the road we chose
with our free vote and face it,
whether arising from the roots and
ties of the inevitable dictatorship,
we build with unforeseen success for
ourselves, the family,
another life and growth, based on
law and the values of freedom.
The year 1995 was the year of
our great achievements in the legislative field,
the old communist codes were
replaced by new codes, with
the law on compensation for land and the
redistribution of agricultural farm lands.
Around 400,000 farmers
and true owners of the
land enjoy New Year in
their home and their land. These
in Albania the first shareholders were created
after 50 years, thousands of enterprises were privatized
with a value greater than that of the 4 previous years
taken together. This year finds
Albanians co-owners of themselves
Albanians and Albania the country
of its citizen-owners.
The year 1995 was the year of the triumph of
our free spirit and initiative,
which is expressed not only in
statements and in the wealth of the varied and
unending delights of this night, but is
expressed even more powerfully in the success
and achievements, which today
I am witness to the “miracle”
of this message, for oneself to
expect throughout all these faces the
gratitude of each toward one another
with hope each of us has in
these achievements his work, courage,
thought and energy,
his contribution, with which
Albania of 1995 will be at the
highest economic growth in
Europe. Inflation and unemployment will be at the level of several
developed European countries,
income per capita will have
quadrupled, the standard of living during '95 rose
around 20-25 percent, despite
circulation from foreign debt, perhaps
that of Albania, over 20
million in currency and private
vehicles circulate, the country is experiencing a true boom in construction and agriculture
was strengthened.
All these achievements are the fruit of
citizen courage and our free work, a living expression of the central force
of the human spirit that was freed from the country, taking with it the sorrow of the darkest years of the
unforgiven past, or with a path with which we face the everyday difficulties that come.
I want to reassure all of them that the solution to
their problems will remain one of our main priorities for
the coming year.
‘95 was the year of
historical integrations
The year '95 was the year of
historical integrations into the
Euro-Atlantic institutions for Albania and
Albanians. In September, after many
centuries of wandering, passing through
the apogees of wars for freedom,
occupations and savage pressure, barbarity,
genocide, bunkerization and
deep suicides, we managed on 22 March
1992 to open our blocked path toward
Europe and in June 1995 we not only moored our ship on the desired shores, but we placed Albania in the lands of
its civilization, in the deserved place in the community of free and democratic Nations of Europe; Albania became a member of the Council of Europe, thus the dream of all those who shaped in Albanian terms the doctrine of being Albanian, of being
European, was fulfilled. Albania joined
the initiative of the countries of Central Europe and during this year
signed the Partnership for Peace,
it established relations with the Northern Atlantic and close cooperation.
During the year '95, the Democratic Party joined the
European Christian Democratic Union and other Albanian political and non-political formations joined international party and political bodies and institutions.
The year '95 was the year of great and historical achievements of Albania
in foreign policy. During this year Albania was visited by statesmen with European and world friendship, a scene for Albania
The same historical feeling has
been for Albania the visit in
the meetings I held in Washington, Rome, Vatican and
Bonn. During the visit that passed, all these are efforts for the development
and consolidation of friendship and
cooperation with states with which
large countries in accordance with
the belief in growing respect and
the international standing of Albania and Albanians, so tonight we also feel for our neighbors.
In the year '95 peace was established in our region and the shadows of war receded, the great barbarity that Europe has known since the Second World War came to an end and real prospects opened for the fair resolution of the Kosovo issue; throughout this year, the Kosovo issue was widely addressed in the White House, in the chancelleries and the largest institutions of Europe. The resolution in support of Kosovo by the international community, which we managed to have adopted this month in the General Assembly of the United Nations with the support of 115 countries, shows the dimensions of the attention and international support that exist today for this just cause. Never before has the country and the international community for solving this problem been more responsible than today, while Albanians are and remain steadfast that, with the same determined and wise policy that avoids conflict, through this policy they will achieve the fair solution to their great issue.
I express my gratitude and my conviction that the year 1996 will mark concrete and important progress in leading the dialogue between the legitimate leaders of the Albanians of Kosovo and Belgrade in the presence of a third party and in realizing the centennial and national aspirations of our brothers in Kosovo and of all Albanians.
The call that the future will
determine the free will
of Albanians
Only a few hours separate us from
the year 1996. This year Albanians in the general and local elections are to elect their rulers with the free vote. These elections will be a free test and one of decisive importance for the orientation of the reforms and of Albania’s future on the road to Europe, for democratic values and justice, the speed of development, if with the elections of 1992 we went to open the tragically closed gates of freedom. The elections of 1996 will democracy as the future of democracy, as well as Albania’s place in the Europe of the 21st century. We have been convinced that not the shadows of the past, but the call of the future, not the yesterday ties of the ideologies of integration into Western Europe, of demagogy, but reality, will determine the free will of Albanians in their historical decision for Albania of the year 2000.
The year 1996 is the year in which we must be determined for the more just development of the social transformations of our society and state in a continuous process of the goal. Divisions and our country, the close support of the new working strata, to reduce the burdens in '96 unemployment and certainly not to bring this through dogmas, principles and slogans finished and made, but in truly sensitive ways of opportunities, freedoms, thus increasing income, chances and opportunities for the free citizen.
A significant increase in wages and pensions, accompanied by a significant increase in their more social categories and the improvement in the quality of education and health services, will at the same time be important to the social dimension of our state for the coming year. The year 1996 will also be the year of mass privatization in securities operations, the year of infrastructure development.
In conclusion, I invite you to come together on this night of hope, of friendship and greatness, to raise together this toast for our health, our happiness and that of our children, and the life of all Albanians, wherever they are tonight in Albania, Kosovo, other Albanian lands, in emigration and throughout the world, as well as all our friends wherever they may be.
Happy New Year 1996!
Happy New Year!