Prime Minister Edi Rama held a meeting with pensioners at Unit No. 2 in Tirana. He stopped at the price of oil and expressed that if this affects food as well, then pensioners and families in need will be the first to be taken into consideration. "Things that happen beyond our will, things we do not decide, we must face, from the pandemic and the earthquake, to the war in Ukraine and now the war in the Middle East, which comes here to the price of oil, which suddenly jumps beyond any kind of prediction and which we hope that this 15-day ceasefire, will lead to a final solution before that oil price, the first symptom, then appears in food prices and if it appears in food prices and will be something we have to deal with, of course the first thing we will think about is you pensioners, definitely, others come after. You are the first and together with you also families certainly in need who are under the economic protection of the government, for whom we are also preparing a new scheme based on a family expenditure card based on the basket, so that the money they receive from the taxes of Albanians goes to the family, for their children and not a single lek ends up in the bar or does not go to gambling and this is important. But meanwhile by doing this that money which through the card will be able to be spent on basic items in any kind of shop, in any kind of point where food is purchased to all be with VAT so that that VAT, which today in many cases is taken aside by the seller goes back to the budget and from that budget returns to you, returns to them and is not taken and hidden from the state by the seller. Meanwhile of course we must want to continue to increase salaries as well. Today salaries in Albania are increasing continuously and in the private sector. Today in the private sector in Albania it is no longer the question: How much will I give the salary? But where will I find the right person to do this job for me? And today Albania is more attractive also for foreign investments as I said, it is more attractive also for developments which until yesterday were unimaginable and all these also increased salaries again go in favor of the state in some directions and one of those directions is that they return again in the form of social insurance payments to you. I want to add something else that interests you more than those who are in these media pots, that I am convinced you have also seen them; 'membership was blocked', 'integration was blocked', 'progress was halted', but this does not matter. What matters is that the negotiations continue according to plan and at this stage we are in the conditions when we have opened, all chapters of the negotiations and now we are discussing with the European Commission, negotiating what are called intermediate benchmarks, which are a series of intermediate benchmarks agreed with the European Commission, that for x things the deadlines are these, for x other things are these, for x other things are these and these stand as an annex in the negotiation process which means that the end of March and April were planned in our work calendar with the commission as the moment of discussion between us and the member states for the intermediate benchmarks. Today the fate of this country has come into our hands and fate has never smiled on Albania before as today, because never before as today has Albania had all the great powers with it. We have done ours to get here, but it is also their interest to take us inside and we must make the most of this moment. Making the most of this moment is the historical duty of every Albanian and certainly it is the mission of our party. We are part of the same political force and we have no reason to hide this thing, on the contrary," said Rama.