Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has said the fate of the Trump-linked luxury resort planned on his country’s Adriatic coast will be settled by an environmental impact assessment and not by “streets and ideology”.
He was speaking on September 29 at a travel and tourism summit staged by Euronews in Brussels. The Albanian leader used the appearance to defend a scheme that has drawn months of demonstrations at home.
The €1.4 billion investment is tied to Affinity Partners, the fund run by Jared Kushner, son-in-law of US President Donald Trump and husband of Ivanka Trump. Rama’s government granted the developers strategic investor status in 2024, well before the environmental review he now presents as decisive.
The plans cover the uninhabited island of Sazan, a former military base off Vlorë in southwestern Albania, and the protected Vjosa-Narta coastline near the village of Zvërnec. The area is home to flamingos, monk seals and nesting sea turtles.
Protests that began in late May around Zvërnec grew over the summer into what campaigners called the “Flamingo Revolution”. Brussels Signal reported in June on marches through Tirana at which demonstrators demanded the project be cancelled and Rama resign.
Rama told the summit his government had to attract investment of this kind to meet the needs of the country, pointing to higher wages and better public services. He said the decision would rest on the assessment rather than on pressure from the street.
He also set out an argument for steering Albania towards the top end of the market. Tourism built on middle and lower-income visitors, he said, placed the country’s infrastructure, nature and services under strain, while higher-spending travellers delivered more and demanded less.
Close to 12 million foreigners visited Albania this year, Rama said, citing figures consistent with UN Tourism data. The country has a population of about 2.4 million.
Albania is among the frontrunners to join the European Union and Rama has said he wants membership by 2030. Accession requires alignment with the bloc’s environmental rules, and Tirana assured the European Commission in June that the development would meet EU standards.
The dispute has already reached Brussels by another route. Opposition figures, activists and journalists covering the protests lost access to Instagram in September, prompting MEPs to press the Commission on the case, though Rama has denied any state involvement.
