Rama presented the project with the mayors/ Boçi ironizes: 'Urban Renaissance 2.0', the government's shame

2026-07-10 19:57:00, Politikë CNA

Rama presented the project with the mayors/ Boçi ironizes: 'Urban

The Vice President of the Democratic Party, Luciano Boçi, reacted this Friday regarding the meeting held by Prime Minister Edi Rama with the country's mayors.

"Renaissance 2.0"/ Rama: 1.5 billion euros for European standards
July 10, 13:56

As Boçi writes on social media, the national program 'Urban Renaissance 2.0' is the shame of Rama and the government he leads.

Full reaction:

When I heard it, I don't know why I remembered that expression:

'The priest jumps out of trouble' Because when a government is forced to put out a new number of the same propaganda, it means that the first product has failed and is not a new vision.

It's a new scam, or more clearly, new packaging for old failures.

After 13 years in power, Rama did not speak as the man who bears direct responsibility for today's Albania, which the revolted citizens in the square rightly anathematize.

He spoke precisely as his own opposition. All the problems he listed as objectives of 'Rilindja 2.0', starting from water, public transport, waste, parking, housing, sanitation, schools, security, public services and quality of life, are areas that he has had under absolute control as Prime Minister for more than a decade.

And if he promised us to solve them today, then he openly admits that he didn't solve them yesterday.

The paradox here is even greater. For years, propaganda told us that the Renaissance was a historic success.

While today, Rama himself declares that citizens are no longer satisfied with what has been done.

Not because they are 'ungrateful', as he tries to justify, but because they face poor services every day, missing water, chaotic traffic, lack of parking, high living costs, mass emigration, and municipalities that barely pay basic expenses.

But more significant than the empty, repeated promises as the first 'Martian' to land on Earth, was what Rama did not say.

He didn't say a word about the failed territorial reform that he himself proclaimed as a historic success in 2014.

It was precisely that reform and this Deceiver that promised stronger, more efficient municipalities, closer to citizens, and that produced asthmatic, incompetent, weak municipalities, far from citizens, and that have encouraged mass abandonment.

And today, after more than a decade, the government is forced to announce a 1.5 billion euro program on paper and in fantasy, to give municipalities what the reform should have guaranteed them from the beginning, back in 2014.

In fact, this 'Renaissance 2.0' of Rama is the strongest indictment against territorial reform, itself.

Because if municipalities today still need a giant rescue package from the center, then the reform did not produce local government.

It produced total dependence on the Prime Minister and his cabinets.

Municipalities were not decentralized. They were centralized.

They didn't democratize it. They politicized it.

The mayors were not empowered. They turned into fund administrators awaiting government approval and stuffing ballot boxes with political votes.

Communities did not gain autonomy. They lost their voice and representation.

The territories were not developed but abandoned.

Services were not increased or improved. They lost roads, schools, and health centers.

Meanwhile, this shameless, 'king of chaos' of local government, talks about 'higher expectations', so this is an idiotic way to not accept failure.

It's not just expectations that have risen, Mr. Prime Minister!

Bills, prices, local taxes, living costs, and the number of Albanians leaving have increased.

When citizens demand 24-hour water after 13 years of government, they do not have excessive expectations.

When they ask for normal public transportation, they are not ungrateful.

When they seek European services, they are not cynical.

Yes, they are persistently demanding the minimum that has been promised to them for years.

The promise of 1.5 billion euros itself raises more questions than it answers.

Where will this money come from?

How much are the grants?

How much do they owe?

How much will citizens pay?

Who sets the priorities?

By what criteria will the funds be allocated?

Because the history of the 'Urban Renaissance' is not the history of balanced development. It is the history of selective projects, electoral facades, and the political distribution of investments.

Moreover, this package is being presented precisely at the moment when the government is preparing a new territorial reform, without taking any serious stock of the first one.

First they fail the reform. Then they announce a program to cover up the failure. Then they prepare another reform without accepting responsibility for the first one. This is not planning. It is propaganda recycling.

In the end, Rama used the metaphor of the 'fortune teller'. But in reality, the problem is not the citizens who are looking for solutions. The problem is the government that for 13 years has been promising miracles with all sorts of colorful names and all sorts of modernisms: Renaissance, Albania 2030, Open Balkans, Mountain Package, Renaissance 2.0, Albanian Files

Yes!

The names change.

Slogans change.

PowerPoints become more beautiful.

While the reality remains the same.

Robbery and theft are increasing at an even more extraordinary rate.

And when a government after thirteen years appears before citizens with version 2.0 of its promises, it is not presenting the future.

Thkesht is admitting that its version 1.0 failed.

You are admitting that greed is not satisfied.

It is admitting that the mockery and hatred towards citizens continues as before.

Renaissance 2.0 is, in short, clear, precise Shame 2.0. /CNA