“That’s how we found it. We swam to the island, hiked barefoot to the top, and were completely captivated. Over many years, we got the chance to help unlock its potential.”
If the woman sharing her dream of improving a foreign island had arrived on a smuggler’s boat, her vision would have been crushed in one of the migrant detention centers Albania recently built with Italy. But the boat in question was a multi-million-dollar yacht, and the woman hiking barefoot to the top was Ivanka Trump. Making the dream happen just meant calling up the country’s prime minister, Edi Rama, and offering her husband, Jared Kushner, and one of his companies to turn a protected wildlife area into luxury real estate.
The Albanian government says no deal is final yet. But it hasn’t hidden its excitement. Who can blame it? After decades of moving from communism to capitalism and long EU membership talks, Albania has lost over 1.2 million citizens to emigration. It has low manufacturing, an agricultural sector badly in need of modernization, and a higher education system in crisis since universities were privatized in the 1990s. With no industrial, financial, or human capital to offer globally, the only thing left to sell is nature. Even tourism, which has grown recently, required a major government campaign to improve the country’s image.
Sustainable development and environmental protection are easy to call for, but expensive and hard to deliver. In a competitive global economy, real estate and luxury tourism create faster growth, even if they increase inequality and drain natural resources. The models on offer are ones richer countries tried 30 years ago and now regret.
Albanians know that real estate speculation without state support means ordinary people struggle to buy a home or pay rent. They know luxury tourism makes holidays in your own country a privilege for the few. With no real unions and a labor movement that only appears in old communist-era May Day footage, working conditions are so exploitative that only people from even poorer countries take the jobs. Albanians just pack up and move abroad, facing abuse and xenophobia. They keep their heads down, knowing it’s the price for their children’s future.
In May 2025, the ruling Socialist Party won elections for the fourth time. Turnout was about 44%, a historic low, even though diaspora Albanians could vote for the first time. There was no election manifesto, no real debate with the opposition (whose leader, Sali Berisha, mostly appeared as an owl in government social media posts). In a country where over 90% of citizens support European integration, it was enough to cover billboards with photos of European passports and repeat one date: membership by 2030.
This is the other side of European integration: criticizing the government becomes opposing Europe itself. There’s no choice between different visions of society, only between different managers of the same inevitable path. With politics reduced to technocratic rule, the only way to understand political conflict is through “corruption”—as if post-communist societies have it in their blood, as if the problem is individual wrongdoing and not the system itself.
For years, Albanians accepted this with the same fatalism as a natural disaster. Now, young people are pushing back. Current protests focus on a new law on strategic investments, which deepens the oligarchic capture of the state. Things escalated when heavy machinery moved into a protected coastal wetland, and a viral video showed private security guards beating a protester while state police stood by.
A generation taught to think the only questions are how fast to build tourism infrastructure, how quicklyAlbania, which once focused on how to integrate into the EU and attract investment efficiently, is now asking: does it have to be this way? Does democracy have to mean rule by a handful of super-rich people?
This is an inspiring example of civic activism, something I haven’t seen since the fall of communism. Its international visibility is no doubt boosted by media attention on the Trump family. But why now? For years, the opposition tried in vain to rally the public against what they called “corruption.” Fires were set in parliament, and Molotov cocktails were thrown at government buildings. But in the case of Kushner, the opposition and the government are on the same side. Maybe that’s what allowed thousands of young people to flood the streets: the certainty that their disobedience wouldn’t be co-opted. It’s moving to see them sing, dance, clean up the streets after protests, and hand flowers to the police. Unlike the old opposition, they aren’t giving up on the state—they’re insisting it belongs to them.
Sold to the Trump family: one of the last undeveloped islands in the Mediterranean. Read more.
In recent years, the response to political disenfranchisement in post-communist Europe has been the rise of xenophobic movements. Only the far right has benefited from anti-system protests. The Albanian case shows that a different kind of mobilization is possible. Far from regressive nationalism or nostalgia, the movement’s only rallying cry—”Albania is not for sale”—reflects something the socialist government has forgotten: that self-respect is the foundation for being respected by others, and that a people willing to sell their soul for investment will find, in the end, that their soul was the only thing of value they had.
There’s something admirable and fragile about a movement without leaders, without a program, without the infrastructure to sustain it long-term. Leaderless movements are harder to co-opt but easier to infiltrate and scatter. To be effective, they need to move from resistance to proposing solutions, finding the political unity that’s suppressed when everyone rallies around a single cause.
Yet, as long as democratic politics is controlled by the wealthy few, politicians come and go, anti-corruption trials satisfy the urge to punish, and civic activism gives the illusion of change. One by one, societies find themselves caught in the same paradoxes of capitalist development. The challenge isn’t just how to replace individuals, but how to build a new system.
Still, for once, Albania doesn’t need to catch up with Europe—it can lead. A generation willing to mobilize for an alternative model of development, one that rejects oligarchic control and links environmental protection to democratic legitimacy, should be celebrated, not feared. Instead of becoming “like the rest of Europe,” as the old slogan went, Albania could teach the old continent a lesson in self-respect.
Lea Ypi is a professor of political history and philosophy at the London School of Economics and author of Indignity: A Life Reimagined.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs about the protests sparked by Jared Kushners projects in Albania written in a natural tone with clear direct answers
BeginnerLevel Questions
1 Why are people in Albania protesting about Jared Kushner
People are protesting because Jared Kushners company plans to build a luxury resort and apartments on a protected pristine coastline in Albania Locals and environmentalists say this will destroy the natural beauty and limit public access to the beach
2 What exactly is Jared Kushner building in Albania
His company wants to build a highend resort villas and a hotel on the Zvrnec Peninsula which is a protected area near the city of Vlora Its part of a larger plan that also includes a hotel on the nearby Sazan Island
3 Is this protest just about one beach or is it bigger
Its about more than one beach The protest is a symbol of a bigger fight against what people see as unchecked development corruption and selling off Albanias natural treasures to foreign investors without proper public debate
4 Why could this be a hopeful sign for Europe
Its hopeful because it shows that citizens in a country like Albania are standing up and demanding transparency and environmental protection This kind of grassroots activism is a core part of a healthy democracy which is good for all of Europe
5 Is the Albanian government supporting the project
Yes the Albanian government has approved the project and sees it as a way to boost tourism and the economy This is a major reason for the protests as people feel the government is ignoring their concerns
AdvancedLevel Questions
6 What specific environmental damage are protesters worried about
Protesters warn the construction will destroy the unique ecosystem of the Zvrnec Peninsula including salt marshes protected bird species and the rare Narta Lagoon They also fear it will set a dangerous precedent for developing other protected areas in Albania
7 How does this protest connect to broader issues of corruption in Albania
Many protesters believe the deal was fasttracked due to Kushners political connections and wealth bypassing normal legal and environmental review processes They see it as a classic example of captured state corruption where private interests override public good
8 How is the protest being organized and who is leading it
The protests are
