Rama: Big dreams always cause controversy

Albania will press ahead with a luxury resort planned on a remote part of the Balkan coast by Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, despite persistent protests over the project's environmental impact, Prime Minister Edi Rama told Reuters on Monday.

Thousands of people took to the streets of the capital Tirana and on the southern coast, where the resort is proposed, demanding that the project be halted due to its impact on a protected wetland area that is home to flamingos, seals and a place where sea turtles lay their eggs.

The flamingo has become a symbol of the movement: protesters carry inflatable pink birds and banners reading "Flamingo Revolution."

Rama is not giving in and says that investors will "stun" the public 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 tell you, it will be a beautiful project and we will implement it, and we will be proud to contribute to Europe," Rama said in an interview with Reuters in his office, a few meters from where demonstrations against the project are held every night.

"I was elected to make these things happen. I wasn't elected to be led by people who have a different idea of ​​how to develop the country."

Rama (61), a former basketball player and artist who came to power in 2013 and is seeking to bring Albania into the EU, prides himself on leading the modernization of a country that languished under a particularly stifling communist dictatorship for decades until the 1990s.

He maintains a casual style, wearing a loose black suit, a black T-shirt and white sneakers. His office looks like an urban co-working space, with wallpaper covered with his vivid paintings. Plates full of crayons and markers are scattered around, and his desk is littered with drawings and scribbles.

The resort he is advocating for is the brainchild of Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump, who described falling in love with Albania during a boat trip a few years ago. Rama met them on that trip and described them as “very nice, humble... good people.”

Now, Kouchner's investment company, Affinity Partners, is involved in a €1,4 billion project near the Vjosa-Narta protected area, as well as another project on nearby Sazan Island.

Rama said that the two projects together are worth up to five billion euros.

"It's a big dream, and big dreams have always been controversial."

Affinity Partners and Kushner did not respond to requests for comment. Sazan Real Estate Development LLC, which is developing the plans, told Reuters it would do so responsibly.

The protests began in late May, when a site near Vjosa-Narte was closed off with a barbed wire fence while work was carried out on an access road and other preparatory construction. Some protesters were injured in clashes with private security. The anger then spread to Tirana.

The fence has since been removed. Rama admitted that putting it up was a "shameful idea."

However, Rama downplayed concerns about environmental impacts. He said that an environmental impact assessment has not yet been completed and will be completed in parallel with the project's development.

"We are very proud of what we have done for wildlife in Albania. The European Commission has no reason to doubt our strong will to protect everything that needs to be protected when it comes to wildlife and nature."