Why Albania can help to rejuvenate “old Europe”

New Europe this phrase has established in Germany and other Western European countries as slightly sarcastic denomination for the Transition states in Central- and Eastern Europe since the days of the former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In 2003 during the diplomatic slugfest of his country with Paris and Berlin on Iraq, he used to bash France and Germany with the label “old Europe.” The phrase implies there is also a “new Europe”, free from the arrogant, self-willing and cynic attitude of former European imperial powers that American “Neo-Cons” reproached Germans and French with. He detected it among those Eastern European countries that -like Albania-were inclined to join the US-headed “Coalition of the Willing.”
Meanwhile malicious tongues in Western Europe interpreted Rumsfeld’s saying in a different way. For them Central- and Eastern Europe was “new Europe” in the way that the peoples from Poland to Albania just recently had turned their back on oriental despotism- rather “not yet fully European” indeed, and therefore prone to give in to a dominant US.
Even before coming to Albania, it appeared clear to me, that the described categorization into “old” and “new” Europeans is not only presumptuous and polemic, but basically ridiculous. Why should Tirana be less a “European” capital, than Athens, which is only some hundred kilometers away, just due to the fact that Greece is an established member of the EU, while Albania is not yet fully associated? And what would old Illyrians say, who once formed a part of the ancient civilization which Europe still refers to, if they would have come to know that their descendants would once not fully be accepted as “Europeans” by some, while the offspring of barbarian Germanic and Gaulic tribes would be considered as “Old Europe”?
While the categories of “old” and “new” do not lead anywhere, there is another classification of the differences between Western and Eastern Europe that makes more sense to me. Western European countries are indeed “old” in terms of demography. The average age in countries like Spain, Italy and Germany is rising dramatically, while birth rates go to the basement. The effect of the demographic change on the mentality of those countries is yet noticeable: Caution overweighs risk appetite, while social conservatism gets more and more the order of the day.
On the contrary Albania appears as a “young” European country, or saying it in different word, it is a country, where many young Europeans live due to the fact, that the average age of Albanians is one of the lowest in Europe.
But Albania’s young generation is not only more significant by figure than their contemporaries in Western Europe it is also well educated, full of entrepreneurial spirit and eager to promote themself. The twens and thirtysomethings of Albania are definitely more flexible and less complaining than their counterparts in Germany and I guess in other Western European countries as well.
Talking to Albanian young professionals I assessed, that they see good opportunities and preconditions for their personal career at home. “Go West” – the refrain of the old Pet-Shop-Boys-Song – no longer seems to be their first option.
As Albania can therefore look into the future with an optimistic smile, also their cousins in Western Europe – easily prone to self-pity and anxiety on the future- can cheer up as well. With the inevitable entrance of Albania and other Eastern and Southern Eastern countries in the EU which are not yet included, the whole continent will be granted a rejuvenation therapy. Mixing “old” Europe with “young” Europe would then definitely be a “new Europe.”