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European Affairs

I am grateful for that intervention, which gives me the opportunity to say that I recently met the leader of the Albanian opposition, who was on a visit here, and engaged in constructive discussions. I am sure that many people in Albania, in government and in opposition, are working together to resolve the difficulties. We need to be aware that there are still difficulties, and the hon. Gentleman has rightly pointed out that the Council of Europe, other organisations and individual Governments will work to try to assist the remarkable process that the Albanian people have made since the regime of Enver Hoxha. We need to think back; the difference between where the country was 20 years ago and where it is today is remarkable. Sometimes, we take the changes since 1989 for granted. When the Berlin wall came down in 1989, I was in Warsaw at a Socialist International meeting. On 9 November that year, I was visiting President Jaruzelski and Prime Minister Mazowiecki. I remember that the only person who predicted that Germany would unify quickly was Rakowski, the communist leader, who said, ““Mark my words—Germany will be united within a year.”” Everyone else said that there would be a confederation and that unification would take time, yet in 10 months Germany was united. The remarkable changes of less than 20 years ago are coming to a culmination. Countries that came out of the breakdown of the cold war and the ending of the bloc system—or the ending of national isolation, such as that of Albania—are coming into the democratic, pluralistic European Union. That is precious. We should work to make sure that it continues, because it provides political stability as well as economic prosperity to all the millions of people in central and eastern Europe.