During the last three weeks Albanian masses have taken to the streets in daily protests against a four-billion-dollar tourist project on their coastline. It is a mass protest of hundreds of thousands of people, in a small country of the population of two and a half million. They are demanding the abandonment of the project planned for the previously Protected Area of Vjosë-Nartë Delta and Sazan island. It would have disastrous consequences for the wildlife. They are demanding answers as to how and why the laws changed in 2025 to allow billionaire landgrabs of protected nature reserves, and call for the resignation of the prime minister Edi Rama who is clearly behind these decisions.
The project became known when a video appeared of Ivanka Trump, daughter of the US president, apparently innocently recounting a story that could have come out from a fairy tale book. Together with her husband and friends, on a boating trip in the Adriatic Sea, they happened to take a swim and “discover” an idyllic lagoon, as you do. An idea was immediately born; this area is too beautiful to leave it to the wild birds (and indigenous people), let’s instead develop it as a beautiful tourist resort, in other words, have it for ourselves.
The lagoon is a breeding site for flamingos, sea turtles and other wildlife. Videos that have since flooded the media showing thousands of flamingos on pristine sandy beaches are breathtakingly beautiful. There is nothing new to Albanian people about the area; they have lived in it for centuries and naturally considered it theirs. They are deeply dismayed by Ivanka “Colombo” video. Of course, nobody for a moment believes her “story”.
Ivanka’s husband is Jared Kushner, a developing magnate involved in many controversial projects around the world, some bitterly opposed by local people. Not long before the Albanian “discovery”, he was pushing for a development in another Balkan country, Serbian capital Belgrade. The project to build a Trump hotel complex at the site of the ex-Yugoslav military headquarters met with strong protests and it failed. Kushner’s firm would have been at the heart of Trump’s controversial project of “reconstructing” Gaza, a project so sick that it’s been difficult to lift off the ground even in the rotten capitalist world we live in.
The Albanian “flamingo revolution”, as it’s become known, first erupted on the beaches in Zvërnec village in the Vjosë-Nartë area where local people destroyed fences that had already been raised. Protesters were beaten and dragged away by the heavy-handed police. Almost the next day big crowds gathered in the capital Tirana and since then the protests have been getting bigger, taking place every single day. Albania, like many other Balkan countries, is poor and suffers from excessive emigration. During the hardline Stalinist regime of Enver Hoxha, the country was isolated and among the poorest in Eastern Europe. The restoration of capitalism didn’t bring much relief to ordinary people. Corruption and servility to foreign capital is shared by all Balkan governments including Albanian. On his recent visit to Israel, the prime minister Edi Rama, praised Netanyahu and admitted that his “knees were shaking in the presence of the great man”. The US is seen as a main ally, not just with the government but also ordinary people. This is not surprisingly given the role of US imperialism in the Kosovo war in 1999 that led to majority Albanian population winning independence for Kosovo. Even though many protesters maintain that they are not against “Americans” but domestic corruption, it is still significant that they have risen against what essentially are US capitalist interests. There are no “friends” when it comes to capitalist plunder.
Moreso because there are many people who think that even the “luxury tourist project” is not the whole story. The Sazan island is positioned at the narrowest passage between Albania and Italy, and from the Mediterranean Sea into the Adriatic Sea. Those who control the island potentially control the sea traffic. The importance of that doesn’t need much explanation at the present time given the situation in the strait of Hormuz. Additionally, it is claimed the island had previously been used by the Stalinist leader Hoxha who, known for his paranoia, built bunkers and other military infrastructure that can still come useful. Slogans seen on some placards “No to Epstein Island in Albania!” are not baseless.
Edi Rama has quite absurdly blamed Iran for being behind the protests, “for their own interests while exploiting the concerns people feel about the environment”. In this, he might have copied from the Serbian leader Vučić’s book, who has also claimed the long lasting student movement in Serbia is another “colour revolution” orchestrated from the West (absurd given that Vučić is servile to all foreign capital including Western), or that some Balkan neighbouring countries are behind the protests against the proposed Rio Tinto lithium mine, in order to prevent “economic development” of their rival Serbia.
The truth of course is that in both cases ordinary people have organised by themselves. The Albanian diaspora has organised protests in many European cities, and are flying back to support protests in the homeland (just like Serbians have done). The outrage against the Kushner project has inspired actions elsewhere in the country against oligarchs and privatisations. Local people have now demolished fences at the Kakomeja beach in southern Albania that was privatised 20 years ago!
In a region that is suffocated by neocolonialism, where corrupt capitalist governments, weak in themselves but backed by imperialist powers whose interests they ultimately serve, working people often find that the land under their feet has been sold off to foreign “investor”, for dirty mining or luxury resorts. The protest movements that are built have a lot in common; they can, should and do learn from each other. No wonder the slogans used are very similar: “Albania is not for sale” or “We don’t give Jadar away” (Jadar valley in Serbia where the lithium mine was supposed to be).
Common struggle
The interest of all working people is the same; to defend their land, preserve the environment and improve their livelihoods. Albanian protests have met with huge solidarity among ordinary people worldwide, and in the Balkans, including the “traditional enemy” Serbia. Anti-mining protests in Serbia learnt from similar Romanian struggles from a decade previously. Bosnian and Serbian anti-mining activists work very closely together. Anti-corruption protests in Greece and Serbia following the train and train station disasters respectively often supported each other. Examples like these of common struggles must be encouraged, in the region where imperialist “divide and conquer” tactics have worked so well, for too long. The slogan “One struggle” is sometimes seen in different areas, showing wider internationalism as it often includes the struggle of Palestinians.
Albania is in the accession line to joining the EU. The EU is certainly not known for its opposition to the interests of big business. But, presumably given that the project would be hugely profitable to the increasingly rival US capitalism, and because questioning the project would give ammunition to put various demands on Edi Rama, the EU has made some noises about “environment”, albeit contradictory ones.
The EU Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos, after asking for “assurances” that the project would be in accordance with the EU environmental standards, very quickly happily announced that Edi Rama gave her those assurances (the EU was equally very easily satisfied that the lithium mine in Serbia, which would have directly benefited German auto-industry, was meeting the “EU standards”).
The EU parliament, seemingly more democratic and independent, although carrying less power in decision making, has however denounced the project. Edi Rama, for his part, is remaining defiant and says that despite the protests and no matter what, the project will go ahead.
The Albanian masses can defend their land against the big business profits, just like Romanians have stopped the gold mine and Serbians the lithium mine. But the threat never disappears completely, for as long as capitalism exists. Neo-colonial countries are under relentless attacks from foreign capital looking for resources. If the capital is pushed back from one place it easily moves to another. “One struggle” is stronger than individual battles. For this reason, the idea of the socialist Balkan Federation was popular hundred years ago but given the more recent history of ethnic wars in the Balkans it was unfortunately pushed back from people’s consciousness. Instead, membership of the EU is today often seen as the way forward for the implementation of the “rule of law” and a remedy for corruption in the Balkan countries (not equally in all countries; in Albania approval of EU membership is the highest at over 90%, in Serbia the lowest, around 30%).
But the capitalist club EU is not a friend of working class people, not in the core countries, and even less the periphery. EU big capital is equally ruthless as the US capital, or any other, and given the chance would behave the same. The EU was very happy to make Serbia their mining colony. Germany is also rich with lithium deposits, which could be extracted much more easily and with less pollution. Yet the priority was put on the project in Serbia that would undoubtedly result in massive pollution. The “EU environmental standards”, whatever they are, don’t equally apply within the EU itself, and certainly don’t apply to EU big business that operates in the neo-colonial world. Same with “human rights” – the EU does not put forward any serious opposition to Israeli state terror against the Palestinians.
It would be a progressive outcome if the commonality of the battles leads some people to rediscover the idea of the ‘Balkan Federation’ and moreover a socialist Balkan Federation, on a voluntary and equal basis. We would add that this needs to be linked up today with the idea of a socialist Europe, where the economy and environment are put under the democratic management and control of working people.