Plans by Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, to develop luxury properties on the Albanian coast have become a point of contention in recent days, as protests have grown over fears of a lack of transparency surrounding the projects and their potential environmental impact.
The protests, in the capital and in coastal towns, have become a lightning rod for widespread discontent in Albania, long one of Europe’s poorest countries. Another protest was planned for Tuesday night in Tirana, the capital.
For years, the plans — a $1.4 billion luxury hotel complex on an island off the coast and another development on a peninsula that is home to sensitive wetlands — have generated concerns about conservation and transparency.
Prime Minister Edi Rama of Albania has repeatedly described the projects as a chance to expand the country’s booming tourist economy and to attract foreign investors.
On Tuesday, Mr. Rama said in a post on social media that the projects represented “the ambition to create the most attractive destination of this side of the Mediterranean.”
He has rejected suggestions by opponents of the plan that Mr. Kushner, who is one of several investors in the project, received preferential treatment to curry favor with his father-in-law, Mr. Trump.
The White House referred questions to Mr. Kushner’s investment firm, Affinity Partners, which has been backed mostly with funding from the Saudi Arabian government. Affinity Partners referred questions to Sazan Real Estate Development LLC, the developer for both the Albanian projects.
“We’re excited about the opportunity to create a world-class destination and make one of the largest private investments in the region’s history,” Asher Abehsera, the chairman of Sazan, the projects’ developer, said in a statement.
He said their focus included “responsible stewardship” of the environment.
Not everyone in Albania agrees.
Taulant Bino, the head of the Albanian Ornithological Society and an opponent of the plan, said he was heartened that the opposition to the project had grown beyond environmental campaigners.
“It’s more or less everything there,” he said. “You find people from the left, people from the right, people from different religious beliefs.”
One issue, he said, is that no environmental impact report has been released publicly, as normally required for such a development project. Since late April, Mr. Bino said, demonstrators have gathered at the site of one of the planned developments on the Zvernec peninsula, a 1,000-acre coastal area that is home to an array of birds, including flamingos and pelicans.
The protests started after he and other environmentalists noticed what looked like the start of construction, which he said included the tracks of heavy equipment and bulldozers dismantling sand dunes.
Mr. Bino said that in the past few days, the protests intensified after fencing, with barbed wire, was erected in the area. He said there is at least one access road, too.
And on Saturday, verified video shows, the disputes turned ugly.
Men shouted across barbed wire fences. Two men dragged another man across the sand by his arms, another clip shows, while people slung what looked like dirt at each other.
Mr. Bino and other protesters see the project as an emblem of what they fear could be democratic backsliding in Albania, which emerged from decades of Communist rule in 1991.
“It’s not only transparency about environmental law — but it’s transparency in general,” Mr. Bino said.
“It’s about democracy,” Mr. Bino added. “The protests are, of course, centered around protected areas — but it’s more about democracy in general.”
For years, locals have raised concerns about the ownership chain of the land, but deals have steamed ahead, overriding local frustrations.
In December 2024, after months of consternation, Albania gave preliminary approval to a plan proposed by Mr. Kushner to build on the uninhabited island of Sazan, once a secretive military base for submarines.
The Zvernec site would include 6,000 hotel rooms and villas if plans come to fruition.
Albanian environmentalists fear similar projects could follow. Mr. Bino, the conservationist, said people were worried that the plans could set a precedent in other environmentally sensitive areas.
“This project is becoming a sort of catalyst,” he said of the Zvernec site, adding that others were just “waiting in the wings” for approval.
