In a long and detailed article, the well-known German newspaper "Süddeutsche Zeitung" dedicates a special profile to Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, describing his connection between art and politics, his journey from the painting studio to the corridors of power, and the impact his distinctive style has had on the public image at home and abroad.
The newspaper also dwells on Rama's historic record of four terms as prime minister, the modern architecture that has changed the face of Tirana, and the contrast between his image as an artist and the accusations of corruption and media control. In a tone that is sometimes critical and sometimes curious, the article raises ironic questions such as: "Shouldn't the city be renamed TiRama?" – summarizing how Rama's art, power, and personality have combined to create a unique profile in European politics.
Below, find the full article from "Süddeutsche Zeitung"Prime Minister of Albania – Painting and Power
Edi Rama is tired. Last night, he returned from the US, where he had attended the wedding of billionaire Alexander Soros and Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s political advisor and close friend. On the table in front of him is a drawing – lines and circles in black and purple. These so-called “everyday drawings” are the trademark of artist Edi Rama, whose main position is prime minister of Albania. They are exhibited all over the world in museums and galleries. Sometimes the colorful paintings remind you of coral, sometimes parts of decomposing plants – in any case, they are something psychedelic, chaotic, even sensual. “But you should not draw conclusions about the painter,” Rama once said.
His drawings are done during conferences, meetings or conversations. “This is how I spend most of my time. Without a pencil in my hand, I can’t stand it,” says Rama, who has governed Tirana since 2013. A prime minister who paints even when doing something else, and with success – a rather unusual hobby for a politician. Thus, his art is also a unique trait that makes him a dazzling figure. And it often distracts from the fact that Edi Rama is indeed controversial.
A meeting in June
Since Rama talks with pleasure about his drawings, he has an audience in mid-June at the government building in the heart of the Albanian capital. In front of the wing where his office is located, the parrots Lulu and Pippo sit in a cage. They seem to have been deliberately placed to greet visitors at the entrance – as a scare: when the parrots shout their names, their cries echo through the long corridors. In front of the cage hangs a giant artwork by German artist Thomas Demand; on the other side stands a glass cabinet in which every visitor must turn off their mobile phone before meeting the prime minister.
Rama, with a white beard and dressed all in black, has to finish a text message before he looks up from behind the large table. He smiles only once, at the end of the nearly hour-long conversation.
His office as a statement
The high walls of his office are covered in wallpaper, densely printed with his drawings; there hangs a large portrait of Albania’s first prime minister, Ismail Qemali. Innumerable state gifts are displayed in many display cases, including a collector’s box of the film “The Godfather.” In one corner is a pile of gym equipment; on a clothes rack, basketball jerseys hang. There is a conference table with transparent Plexiglas chairs depicting the country’s emblem, the eagle, and a corner with leather sofas for official state guests. And then there is the large dark wooden table, almost entirely covered with pens, colored pencils, watercolors and brushes. Any child who sees such a mess would hear: Clean it up quickly!
Focused, even when you're not looking
Don't worry if he doesn't look at his counterpart during the conversation, say people who have met him. It's not rude, but rather a sign of how focused he is. But on this day, he puts the drawing aside, apparently too tired to concentrate.
Rama, married with two children, prefers to draw on the printed pages of his agenda, which his staff places on his desk. Does an aide check them for confidential information before handing them over? “No,” Rama complains. “That can sometimes be a problem, because the protocol papers become unusable when I draw on them.” He speaks softly today, but one can easily imagine his deep voice at full volume.
Four terms, one record
In mid-May, Rama’s Socialist Party (SP) was re-elected with 52 percent of the vote, securing an absolute majority – although international election observers such as the OSCE criticized the campaign, citing misuse of public resources by the ruling party, unfair influence over voters and intimidation of public employees. The vote itself, they say, was conducted fairly. It marked Rama’s fourth term in office – making him the longest-serving prime minister in Albania’s history, now 12 years in office.
Always in the front row
Last week, at the NATO summit in The Hague, Rama stood in the front row for photos—alongside Donald Trump, Keir Starmer, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Standing almost two meters tall, it’s hard not to notice him, even his white sneakers, which he wears often and with pleasure. In 2023, he told the Italian magazine “Vogue” how important appearance is.
But being at the front of this distinguished group is also surprising given that, as of January 2025, his country has a population of just under 2,4 million – and a major emigration problem. Since the end of the dictatorship in 1991, around half the population is said to have fled their homeland. Now, they want to bring them back, as things are finally moving forward. According to the World Bank, Albania’s economy has grown faster in recent years than that of other Balkan countries. Tourism is particularly booming: 11,7 million foreign tourists arrived in 2024, up 15 percent from the year before. Large swaths of the Mediterranean coast are being developed; Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is showing interest in the island of Sazan in the south, and a new airport is planned for the Vjosa River Delta, a protected national park.
Shouldn't the city be renamed TiRama?
Construction is also rampant. Rama is focusing on architecture on a grand scale. In the capital Tirana, with a population of around 600, one unusual building is being built next to another, designed by architectural firms such as Coop Himmelb(l)au, Daniel Libeskind and Stefano Boeri – even if it is not entirely clear who will live there. According to the Federal Statistical Office, Albania’s gross national income per capita in 000 was $2023. By comparison, in Germany it is $7. The rounded balconies on the 680-meter-high Skanderbeg Building, designed by Dutch architecture firm MVRDV, are intended to represent the head of the national hero Skanderbeg. But in Tirana, they say it looks like Edi Rama!
Overall: Shouldn't the city be renamed TiRama?
From the beginning, the city was his showcase. In 2000, Rama became mayor of Tirana and remained so for 11 years. He brought color to the gray socialist background; renowned artists such as Ólafur Elíasson and Liam Gillick participated in his idea to paint dozens of houses in bright colors, and for the first time, Rama also tried the press attack on a politician who was also an artist. In 2003, his friend and former student, Anri Sala, made the short film “Dammi i Colori” about colorful changes, which was shown at the Venice Biennale. Since then, the art world in particular has tended to turn a blind eye to Rama, an artist who is also a politician.
Because, despite all the sympathy for the extravagant prime minister, there are major problems in the country with corruption, drug trafficking, money laundering and nepotism – accusations are leveled at both the government and the opposition. But public criticism is rare; independent reporting as a journalist is difficult in Albania.
Aleksandër Çipa, president of the Union of Journalists in Albania, recently said that “the most influential part of the media scene is influenced and controlled by the authority of the government, especially by the authority of the prime minister himself.”
However, Rama is considered a stabilizer in the Balkans within the EU; Ursula von der Leyen calls him “dear Edi.” His goal: to bring Albania into the EU by 2030. Accession negotiations have been underway since 2022, and according to EU Council President António Costa, the country has good prospects.
There is a danger of "hiding behind art", writes one of Rama's critics
Critics such as Dutch journalist Vincent WJ van Gerven Oei, who lived in Albania for several years, worry that Rama's profile as an artist distracts too much from his politics. He argues that it is not his art, but being an artist, that benefits him politically.
There is a risk of art being washed away, especially when viewed from the outside, as the journalist describes in his texts. When faced with this criticism, Rama expresses incomprehension. He does not understand how art can benefit him in politics. “I have not been a full-time artist for a long time. Art is my refuge, a counterbalance to my daily political life, in which I am constantly surrounded by others.” Moreover, art and politics in Albania have been the same for a very long time, “terrible!” He experienced this firsthand.
Rama was painting nonstop from the age of three, and as a teenager, he began to develop an interest in art history. Not so easy: “I just stopped with Gustave Courbet,” Rama says.
Any relevant art that followed the realist painter, who died in 1877, was taboo. “When I realized how much more there was, a new world opened up to me.”
For a long time, he had known works by beloved artists like Salvador Dalí and Picasso only as photographs in banned books. Rama came across his first original work of art, a sculpture by Auguste Rodin, in 1989. At the time, he was traveling to Germany as a player on Albania’s national basketball team. To visit the “Kunsthalle” in Bremen, he sneaked out of the hotel where the team was staying—one of the happiest days of his life, he later recalled. At the same time, the introduction to this new and vast world made life more difficult, “because the walls around me suddenly felt thicker.” He applied to art school and began to fight against those walls. “Art brought me into politics,” Rama says.
One day, then-Prime Minister Fatos Nano called and asked him if he would like to become Minister of Culture.
He had not found political common ground with his father, Kristaq, who worked for the regime as a sculptor. “My father was a communist, but fortunately he didn’t tell me what to do or believe.” After completing his studies, Rama worked as an art professor in Tirana, and a scholarship eventually took him to Paris. In 1998, his father died. The then 34-year-old actually wanted to leave the country after a few days, but that never happened. While he was making coffee for everyone after the funeral, then-Prime Minister Fatos Nano called and asked him if he would like to become minister of culture. “Okay,” Rama said. On his CV, which the ministry later requested for procedural reasons, he simply wrote: Edi Rama, born July 4. That should have been enough; the rest is history.
People who have known Rama for years say his years in power have changed him. His policies have the hallmarks of an autocracy, and he seems to change his mind on even fundamental issues depending on the political climate, such as EU asylum centers, which he categorically rejected in his own country in 2018. In 2023, he then allowed Italy to build such centers, even if they are currently being used differently than they were originally conceived by the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. Currently, they house people whose asylum requests have already been rejected in Italy.
For artist Adi Dule, a childhood friend, Rama has remained the same. He shares a studio with him in an industrial area northeast of Tirana, where they work together in clay. In the high-ceilinged room, Rama always sits in an armchair next to the open fireplace, which hangs imposingly from a pipe, Dule says. The blue patterned blanket on the armchair indicates that he must have sat there many times.
At the end, he gives you an album of his art.
Rama’s sculptures look like 3D versions of his paintings. “Our fathers were both sculptors, so it’s in our blood.” The men have known each other for 50 years. “Such a long friendship. Who can boast of that,” the man in the tight shirt, which highlights his muscles, says with a smile. Despite politics and despite Rama’s connections with famous people like the Clintons, their closeness has never wavered. “Edi is just perfect,” says Dule. What else could he say in the presence of a journalist?
And how does Edi see himself? Is he the same person he was 27 years ago, when he entered politics, and who they want to hear about at the end of it all? “No, politics changes everyone. But I hope I have remained fundamentally true to myself.” He says he has become more patient over the years; otherwise, he would have no chance of surviving the political circus. “However, sometimes I have the impression that I am no longer just one person, but two: a politician and an artist.” Although he has ceased to be a “full-time artist,” as he puts it, he does not want to completely abandon the artist as a politician. The tall man jumps up as his next meeting approaches. “Just a minute,” Rama says, picking up an album of his art and squeezing it in his hand. Although he had previously emphasized how little he cared about what others thought of his work, a little artistic pride is necessary.
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