Albawaba - Albania’s PM Edi Rama said that he’s ‘undeterred’ and will continue to build Jared Kushner’s luxury resort despite protests regarding its environmental damage.
Protestors in the thousands gathered in the streets of the capital Tirana and the southern coast where the resort will be built; raising concern for its impact on a protected wetland home to flamingoes, seals and sea turtle nesting sites.
The protesters are calling for the project to be scrapped completely. Using the flamingoes as their symbols; the protesters march carrying inflatable pink birds and chanting “Flamingo Revolution”. Edi Rama is however unmoved by the Flamingo Revolution as he declared that he is moving ahead with the project, telling Reuters that the project will "stun" onlookers with their plans in the coming months and that parts of the resort could be open to the public before the end of the decade.
“I'm telling you, it's going to be a beautiful project and we're going to do it and we're going to be proud to contribute to Europe,” Rama said a few metres from where nightly demonstrations against the project have taken place. “I was voted in to make these things happen. I'm not voted to be led by people that have a different idea of how to develop the country.”
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama makes a press statement ahead of the EU-Western Balkans Summit at Porto Montenegro in Tivat on June 5, 2026. (Photo by ELVIS BARUKCIC / AFP)
The protesters are marching not only for the pink birds but also for the resignation of Edi Rama, as his long 13-year tenure as PM failed to solve long-standing problems like corruption and improving basic services. “We are getting bigger and we are here until he resigns. Not only for biodiversity but for every injustice we face,” said student Albano Lushi.
The project, initiated by Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump who “fell in love with Albania” on a trip, Rama who met them on that same trip described them as “very nice, humble...humanly good people.”
