Albania clears a former military island for Kushner's luxury resort

In January 2025, Albania's government granted Strategic Investor status to a proposal by Jared Kushner, son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, to develop the uninhabited island of Sazan as a luxury resort. The designation, awarded under Albania's strategic-investments law, expedites permitting and state incentives. The government decision cited a projected investment of 1.4 billion euros and the creation of 1,000 jobs, and covers some 562 hectares of the island, of which about 45 would be developed. Sazan, a five-square-kilometre island roughly 30 kilometres from Vlora overlooking the Otranto Strait, served as a military base under Fascist Italy and communist Albania and remained on the list of national military assets until December 2024, when a presidential decision removed it. Kushner announced plans to invest in Albania and in Serbia in March 2024, which raised questions about whether his businesses were benefiting from his father-in-law's status as the incoming president. Kushner also proposed developing the adjoining Zvernec area, which falls inside the environmentally protected Narta-Zvernec zone; lawyers for environmental groups say a 2024 law enacted under Prime Minister Edi Rama stripped that ecosystem's protection and permitted five-star hotel construction, in violation of Albanian and European Union law. The project has drawn sustained protests in Tirana and legal challenges, and Rama has publicly backed it.