Two prime ministers in America

Every September, the UN General Assembly gives leaders of small countries a rare opportunity: for a few days, almost everyone who matters is in the same city. This year too, prime ministers and presidents from all over the world gathered, as usual, in New York. Among them were two Balkan prime ministers whom I take as examples in this article: the prime minister of North Macedonia, Hristian Mickovski, and that of Albania, Edi Rama.

Hristijan Mickoski, the prime minister of North Macedonia, used the visit to knock on as many doors as possible. In New York he met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The next day he sat down with Deputy Secretary Christopher Landau, together with the two key State Department officials for Europe and the Balkans, Brendan Hanrahan and Daniel Lawton.

In Washington he met with the development chief of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), Caroline Vik, and with two lawmakers who carry weight for the region: Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, co-chair of the friendship group with Macedonia, and Congressman Keith Self, chair of the Subcommittee on Europe. He also met with leaders of the U.S. military industry and discussed expanding American investments in the arms sector in North Macedonia. The topics were concrete: investments, energy, technology, defence and critical minerals, including antimony.

He also held bilateral meetings with the president of Finland, Alexander Stubb, with the prime minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, with the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, and took part in the meeting of Western Balkans leaders with the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas. Mickovski also held a separate meeting with UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

Not every meeting produced a new agreement. Some projects had started earlier. But the message was clear: Mickoski went to America to work.

His UN speech followed the same line. He spoke about the economy, energy, education, emigration and North Macedonia’s place in Europe and in NATO.

Edi Rama chose a different path. Most of his UN speech was devoted to artificial intelligence and “Diella”, the government’s project for its use in administration. He advised the world on how to protect itself from distortions, explained that the protests in Tirana were a consequence of the use of algorithms and fake news, and even gave four guidelines on how people should behave amid future developments to protect themselves. But the speech was, in the end, just a speech.

According to public information, during his stay in the U.S. Rama had no meeting with any U.S. administration official. Nor with any other president or prime minister. His time was divided between meetings with the diaspora in Michigan and New York, an Albanian-American gala and the UN podium.

Meetings with the diaspora are important and natural for any Albanian prime minister in America. But they are not state diplomacy. They cannot replace a meeting with the State Department, with Congress or with a foreign counterpart.

This matters particularly for Albania. For years, the government has presented the relationship with the United States as one of its greatest achievements. But such a relationship is not measured with declarations of friendship. It is measured with meetings, with agreements, with results.

Not every visit can produce agreements. Part of diplomacy happens away from the cameras. But when a government constantly calls the relationship with Washington a key success, the public has the right to ask: what substance does this success have?

The difference between the two prime ministers was not in the photographs or in their style at the podium. It was in how they used the opportunity. Mickoski sat down with the Secretary of State, with the U.S. leaders for Europe, with Congress, with counterparts and with the European Union. Rama met with the diaspora. In fact, Mickovski himself met with the Albanian diaspora in New York.