Thousands of Albanian demonstrators have gathered in the capital city of Tirana for the fourth straight day, rallying against a billion-dollar coastal tourism development project headed by former U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump. The four-day stretch of public unrest has brought widespread attention to long-simmering public concerns over environmental protection and government transparency, as protesters push for rollbacks of regulatory changes that cleared the way for construction in one of Albania’s most ecologically sensitive regions.
Protesters carried a range of provocative signs during Thursday’s demonstration, with many demanding the resignation of sitting Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama. One widely circulated banner depicted Rama handing over the symbolic keys to the country to Ivanka Trump, underscoring widespread public anger over what demonstrators frame as a surrender of national environmental heritage to foreign private interests.
At the core of the controversy is the proposed $1.2 billion development, which plans to build multiple luxury hotels across the Vjosa-Narta protected area on Albania’s southern Adriatic coast, alongside a massive redevelopment of Sazan Island. Sazan, once a closed-off secret military base under Albania’s former communist regime, would be transformed into an upscale, glitzy tourist hotspot under plans first unveiled to the public two years ago. Opponents of the project argue that construction in the protected conservation zone will cause irreversible damage to the region’s unique ecosystems, which are already designated as a priority conservation area for the country.
Public anger over the project boiled over in recent days following two key developments: first, a viral video showing construction bulldozers already conducting preparatory work on the project site along the beach, and second, an incident where on-site security guards assaulted a local man near the protected area boundaries. These events turned growing public discontent into sustained mass demonstrations, uniting a broad coalition of environmental activists, human rights organizers and ordinary citizens.
Beyond canceling the Kushner-led project, demonstrators are demanding two major policy reversals: the full repeal of the controversial Strategic Investor Act, a law designed to cut through red tape and accelerate approval for large-scale private projects, and the rollback of recent amendments to the national Protected Areas Act that allow commercial hotel construction in officially protected conservation zones. Currently, 22 percent of Albania’s total national territory is designated as protected conservation land, a figure that activists warn could be eroded by the regulatory changes.
Luciana Kokaj, a 31-year-old human rights activist who attended the protest, shared her own personal experience with predatory large-scale development, noting she had previously fought a major investor who attempted to seize her northern Albanian property using forged ownership documents. Even so, she emphasized that the current movement goes far beyond individual grievances. “But this is beyond my personal interest: it’s about protecting Albania for our children,” she told reporters from Agence France-Presse at the protest site.
Etleva Merko, another participating demonstrator, pushed back against recent claims from Prime Minister Rama that protesters oppose all economic development for the country. “We are for development, we are for transparency, we are against construction in protected areas,” she made clear, framing the movement as a fight for responsible, sustainable growth rather than an rejection of investment entirely.
In response to the growing unrest, Albania’s Special Prosecutor’s Office against Corruption and Organized Crime announced earlier this week that it had opened a formal investigation into the proposed project. Officials have not yet released any additional details on the scope or focus of the ongoing probe.