{"id":715892,"date":"2026-06-05T03:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T03:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/715892\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T03:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T03:22:11","slug":"jared-kushner-linked-development-project-in-albania-faces-growing-resistance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/715892\/","title":{"rendered":"Jared Kushner-linked development project in Albania faces growing resistance"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A massive coastal development project linked to Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump, is facing growing resistance from protesters in Albania. <\/p>\n

Police fired water cannons and clashed with protesters Wednesday in the capital, Tirana. <\/p>\n

The government says the development on the Adriatic coast would be transformational for the former communist nation as it seeks to enter the high-end tourism market and pursue European Union membership. <\/p>\n

But the venture, spanning an abandoned island and a nearby stretch of seafront on Albania’s southern coast, has drawn opposition from environmental campaigners and critics of longtime Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama. <\/p>\n

Site ‘captivated’ Ivanka Trump, husband<\/p>\n

The luxury project has two components: a coastal development in the Narta Lagoon area, a wildlife reserve, and a smaller resort on the nearby uninhabited island of Sazan, a communist-era military base.<\/p>\n

\"AA drone-captured view of demonstrators gathered in Tirana Thursday, during a protest against a luxury resort development planned by a company linked with U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. (Florion Goga\/Reuters)<\/p>\n

The planned development of hotels, apartments, villas and a marina is linked to Kushner and Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump. <\/p>\n

In an interview this week with U.S. podcaster David Senra, Ivanka Trump said they discovered the site by accident.<\/p>\n

“We were on a friend’s boat, and we stopped for a swim. Effectively, that’s how we found it,” she said. “We swam to the island. We went on a hike, barefoot all the way up to the top, and we were just captivated.”<\/p>\n

An investment firm linked to Kushner has been granted special investor status by Albanian authorities.<\/p>\n

Harsh rule, pristine beaches <\/p>\n

Albania has 450 kilometres of coast that remained largely underdeveloped during decades of harsh communist rule.<\/p>\n

Protest groups fear the sections of that pristine coastline could be snapped up by powerful investors. And public anger grew after video showed an activist being dragged by a private security guard while demonstrating at the site.<\/p>\n

The development is planned within a nature reserve and one of Albania’s most valuable biodiversity areas, a key stopover for migratory birds along the Adriatic coast.<\/p>\n

\"AA protester holds pink flamingo cutouts during a demonstration in Tirana on Wednesday. (Hameraldi Agolli\/The Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Protesters have carried cardboard cut-outs of pink flamingos, one of the protected migratory bird species, at rallies in Tirana.<\/p>\n

Since late May, excavators and other heavy machinery have entered the area, opening access routes, digging into the sand, clearing land among pine trees and installing fencing.<\/p>\n

Environmental groups from Albania and elsewhere in Europe condemned the work, with one prominent local group saying long-protected habitats are being “irreversibly destroyed.” <\/p>\n

A multi-billion dollar bonanza?<\/p>\n

Albania’s state anti-corruption agency has confirmed it opened an investigation related to the project but has not disclosed details. <\/p>\n

\"AAn investment firm linked to Jared Kushner \u2014 seen above at a Ukraine-related summit in Paris in January \u2014 has been granted special investor status by Albanian authorities. (Ludovic Marin\/AFP\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The government says the land earmarked for the project is privately owned. But competing claims have emerged questioning the privatization \u2014 a common type of legal dispute. <\/p>\n

Rama has committed to the venture, saying it would align with Albania’s ambition to become a major global tourism destination.<\/p>\n

“Albania should not be a country that fears an extraordinary project like this one, where exceptional partners have come together to invest 4 billion euros ($4.6 billion US),” Rama said.<\/p>\n

He added: “There is no chance for this investment to stop as long as I am here.”<\/p>\n

However, the demise of a similar project in Serbia offers a cautionary tale. In November, Serbia’s Parliament passed a special law to allow a luxury complex in the capital, Belgrade, to be financed by an investment company linked to Kushner. <\/p>\n

The following month, Serbia’s prosecutor for organized crime charged four people, including a government minister, with abuse of office and falsifying of documents to help pave the way for the development. <\/p>\n

Kushner later withdrew from the planned multi-million investment, which would have replaced a sprawling bombed-out military complex \u2014 a designated heritage zone whose legal protection was lifted by the former officials now on trial. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":["post-715892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}