For residents of Zvërnec, a coastal village in southern Albania, Pishë Poro beach has always been part of everyday life. Brunela Mërtiri has spent her entire life swimming and sunbathing along that shore—at least until wire fences suddenly appeared this spring.
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The fences mark out the site of a luxury tourism complex intended to cover more than 13 million square meters along the Albanian coast, also affecting the protected areas of the Narta Lagoon and Sazan Island.
The Sazan resort project has sparked fierce controversy because it is backed by companies linked to Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump, and enjoys the full support of Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama.
Although construction began in April, it immediately encountered obstacles due to demands for an environmental assessment and investigations launched by the Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK), Albania’s independent anti-corruption body.
“This is my land. They have no right to come and take our land, sea and forest. It belongs to us; it is not their property. It does not belong to Kastrati, Kushner, Trump or anyone else,” Mërtiri said in a video that has gone viral in recent days, referring to Shefqet Kastrati, one of Albania’s most influential businesspeople, who is involved in the project.
Mërtiri’s clip and another video showing a young man being dragged away by two private security guards during a protest illustrate the extent of Albanians’ anger over the plan.
For more than a month, tens of thousands of citizens have marched to government headquarters in Tirana, demanding not only that the project be halted and Rama resign, but also an end to the corruption that has plagued the country, which is seeking to join the European Union.
Dubbed the “Flamingo Revolution” in honor of the migratory bird that finds refuge in the Narta Lagoon, it is Albania’s most significant social movement since the collapse of the communist dictatorship in 1991.
It marks a new wave of Generation Z-led protests, echoing the anti-corruption and anti-authoritarian spirit running through similar movements in Hungary, Serbia and other countries in the region.
Although the resort was the catalyst, the movement has now grown much broader, becoming the voice of a new Albania demanding genuine democracy, transparency and accountability.
It is bringing together people of different ages and political persuasions, mobilizing Albania’s large diaspora and inspiring solidarity among many Europeans.
Yet it faces the reality of entrenched corruption, clientelism, organized crime and a long-standing disregard for the public good.
The resort was first proposed in 2024 and aims to concentrate billions of dollars in investment at two sites: approximately $1.4 billion to transform Sazan Island and $4.7 billion to develop a vast tract of land near Zvërnec.
The published plans show that the project includes 600 attached houses, 520 villas, 1,400 apartments, a marina for 350 superyachts, a golf course, shopping centers and restaurants.
Rama has responded to criticism by saying that the investors are powerful and that “this is a historic opportunity for Albania.” In an interview with the Financial Times in June, he added: “If it were not for Jared Kushner, no one would care about the flamingos, Albania or anything else.”
Local residents, on the other hand, see it as a corrupt deal that will enrich only a handful of investors and wealthy tourists while sacrificing the environment, their property and Albania’s very prospects of joining the EU.
In an interview in May, Ivanka Trump said that she and Kushner had “discovered” Sazan Island—which she called a “private island in the middle of the Mediterranean”—by swimming there and walking barefoot to the summit.
“Now I can’t live without it,” she said. Her account, which Albanian media compared ironically to the adventures of Robinson Crusoe, has outraged locals who know the island well.
Sazan is undoubtedly a stunning, uninhabited gem crowning the Bay of Vlora at the point where the Adriatic Sea meets the Ionian. But it is by no means undiscovered or untouched land.
The island served as a military outpost in antiquity and, during the Cold War, as a base for Soviet submarines, leaving it filled with bunkers and secret tunnels. After the military bases closed, it was designated part of the Karaburun-Sazan Marine National Park in 2010.
Until 2024, it was illegal to sell or lease protected land in national parks for private development.
Parliament then passed Law 21/2024, an amendment to an earlier law on protected areas that introduced special exemptions for five-star tourist resorts.
Protesters are demanding the repeal of this amendment and have received support from members of the European Parliament, who issued a resolution calling for the project to be halted and for European environmental protection legislation to be enforced. Dutch MEP Tineke Strik warned: “If this continues, you will have a major problem with the EU during the negotiations.”
Beyond the environmental damage, protesters have concerns about how the project was granted strategic investment status. Albania’s Strategic Investments Law, adopted in 2015, requires the state to help expedite administrative procedures and cover infrastructure costs for this type of project.
The decision granting strategic investor status to Atlantic Incubation Partners, a firm linked to Kushner, stated clearly that the Ministry of Defense—in other words, taxpayers—would pay to clear military waste from Sazan. The island is littered with Soviet-era munitions and unexploded mines, and it lacks running water and a proper sewage system.
Protesters fear that Albanian taxpayers’ money will be used to subsidize global billionaires, while the business established there will bring no benefit to the community.
Approximately 2,000 visitors arrive on Sazan every day, but very few Albanians would be able to afford a room at this luxury hotel, which could cost the equivalent of an entire monthly salary. Ultimately, what is increasingly taking place is a form of development through dispossession, in which officials sell public assets for personal gain.
