The Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, has assured that she “personally” paid the bill that a group of Italians left unpaid in a restaurant in Albania because she felt “ashamed” after her Albanian counterpart, Edi Rama, told her what happened. .
Meloni, who has spent a few days on vacation in that country, explained that there Rama “told him the story of four Italians who escaped to a local restaurant without paying the bill. The restaurant owner, after the images went viral of the escape, he said he was still happy because our compatriots ate well and were happy”.
“I was ashamed, because the Italy that I want to represent is not a nation that is talked about abroad for these things, that does not respect the work of others, that thinks it is fun to deceive others. So I decided to ask him to the ambassador who was going to settle the account, which I paid myself. Nothing serious, in fact I did not even count it, “he wrote on his social networks.
But, he added, “even this has created controversy in Italy, from an opposition that obviously prefers another image of Italy. I’m sorry because I hoped that at least on something so trivial we could all agree.”
The Italian Embassy in Albania explained in a statement that, at Meloni’s indication, “the account has been settled” because “Italians respect the rules and settle their debts. We hope that episodes like this will not be repeated.”
The case spread rapidly on various social networks, after the restaurant published images of a group of four Italian tourists who had escaped from a restaurant in the town of Berat without paying the bill of about 80 euros.
