For the second consecutive day, thousands of demonstrators gathered in Tirana on Tuesday to protest a luxury resort project in southern Albania, a development tied to Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former U.S. President Donald Trump. The planned complex, with an estimated cost of $4 billion (€3 billion), is slated for construction on roughly 2.5 square kilometres of the protected Vjosa-Narta coastal landscape near Zvërnec and on the uninhabited Adriatic island of Sazan.
Protesters chanted “Albania belongs to Albanians” and carried signs reading “Hands off Vjosa-Narta,” reflecting deep-seated anger over what they see as a government-sanctioned incursion into a fragile ecosystem. Klajdi Belo, an activist present at the demonstration, told reporters: “The situation in Narta (Lagoon) is that, in practice, we have a protected area, but above all, our state has allowed construction work to continue without consultation and without transparency.”
Environmental and Transparency Concerns
Environmental NGOs have long warned that the resort could harm local biodiversity and disrupt bird migration routes along the Adriatic flyway. Public alarm escalated in early May when excavators began clearing pine forests and dunes to build access roads and construction sites. The outrage was further fuelled by a social media video showing an activist being forcibly removed from the site by security personnel.
Arilda Lleshi, another protester, described the incident: “There is great public outrage over what is happening in Albania, but the spark was what happened in Zvërnec, which everyone saw on social media: an activist being dragged along the ground by several people wearing black shirts from a security company because he was protesting against a fence that had been installed there illegally.”
The development has received backing from Prime Minister Edi Rama’s government, which has promoted luxury tourism as a pillar of its strategy to attract foreign capital and expand the country’s high-end tourism sector. Critics, however, accuse the administration of facilitating the project through legislative changes adopted in 2024 that eased restrictions on protected areas. Demonstrators are now calling for Rama’s resignation.
Rama has defended the construction, insisting it complies with legal and environmental requirements. Yet the protests highlight a broader tension across Europe between economic development and environmental protection, a debate that resonates in other EU member states as well. For instance, similar concerns over tourism and health risks have emerged in Spain, while six EU states have pushed back against planned cuts to free carbon permits, underscoring the continent’s struggle to balance growth with sustainability.
The Albanian government’s push for high-end tourism investments is part of a broader effort to modernise the economy, but the lack of transparency and the perceived disregard for environmental safeguards have galvanised opposition. As the protests continue, the spotlight remains on how Albania—and Europe—navigates the intersection of foreign investment, ecological preservation, and democratic accountability.
