Police in Albania have fired tear gas and turned water cannons on demonstrators in Tirana, the sharpest turn yet in the protest wave Albanians call the Flamingo Revolution, aimed at a luxury resort tied to the family of US President Donald Trump.
Officers moved on the crowd outside parliament on Thursday. Police said at least 18 people were detained, and 12 officers were hurt as eggs, rocks and other objects flew. Interior Minister Besfort Lamallari condemned what he described as “the acts of vandalism and criminal violence” directed at officers.
The target of the anger is a €1.4 billion development planned by Affinity Partners, the firm run by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Unveiled in December 2024, it centres on Sazan Island, a former military zone sealed off from the public for decades and still Albania’s largest island, along with sites on the protected Vlora coast. Locals call the project “Kushner Island”.
The movement takes its name from the birds of the Narta Lagoon, a stretch of salt marsh, wetland and dune near the mouth of the Vjosa River that shelters flamingos and pelicans and sits beside one planned site. The newest wave of rallies began when bulldozers and barbed-wire fencing showed up on a beach at Zvernec, on the southern coast.
Since May 30 the demonstrations have been held almost without pause, spreading from Tirana and Vlora to diaspora gatherings in European capitals. What started as an environmental fight has widened into something broader, aimed squarely at Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist government, in power since 2013 and accused for years of doing too little against corruption. Slogans run from “My country is not for sale” and “Ivanka, keep your hands off Narta” to “Edi in jail, Berisha in jail”, a jab at the opposition leader as well.
Rama has not budged. “There is no chance that the project will stop as long as I am here,” he said in one statement. On X he complained that a “beautiful protest of citizenship” had given way to “conflict, strife, and violence”. Pressed in a DW interview on the protesters’ concerns, he conceded that “Yes, we have made changes to the law,” before insisting: “But guess what? We didn’t change the substance of the law, and our changes are not in breach of European standards and criteria.”
“The protesters want their voice to be heard inside [the parliament], as the prime minister for so many days has not heard them and has ignored them,” Agustela Thoma, a demonstrator, told the Associated Press.
The stakes reach past one resort. Albanians have watched housing prices climb in the capital and on the coast while the country’s population has slipped from 2.82 million in the 2011 count to 2.4 million in 2023. Brussels, which opened all 33 negotiating chapters with Tirana between 2024 and 2025, says it is following the handling of the protests and the rule of law with concern.
Sources
- The Flamingo Movement: Why Albania needs a new political contract – Institut Jacques Delors
- Albanian police fire tear gas at 'Flamingo Revolution' rally
