Kushner, via his company Affinity Partners, is negotiating to purchase the formerly uninhabited, 5-square-kilometer island in the Adriatic for $1.4 billion in order to turn it into a luxury eco-resort with high-end villas, marinas and bunkers for wealthy visitors. <\/p>\n
The plans have prompted howls of protest from environmental groups, with 41 organizations writing to Rama and his environment minister in January to urge the immediate breakoff of negotiations, arguing that the plans represent a \u201cdirect contradiction\u201d of Albania\u2019s obligations under the EU accession process.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Asked about the plans, Rama voiced frustration: \u201cIt\u2019s incredible that even big channels, highly reputed worldwide, they even talk about an island that was sold to Jared Kushner. It\u2019s not true \u2026 I don\u2019t know how to make this end because we haven\u2019t made a deal with Jared Kushner. We are negotiating a deal with Jared Kushner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Talks about the sale have been ongoing since before Trump\u2019s second term, added Rama, at a time when it was \u201cnot clear if he [Trump] would be in the White House or in jail.\u201d But the deal should in no way impede Albania\u2019s bid to join the European Union, a process in which, along with Montenegro, \u201cwe are the frontrunners,\u201d said Rama.<\/p>\n
On the contrary, \u201cI wish we will finally have the deal because if their [Kushner\u2019s company] investment will go through, it will be a beautiful present \u2026 to make to Europe,\u201d he said, adding that it was \u201cabout beauty, about sustainable development.\u201d<\/p>\n
An EU official, granted anonymity to speak freely, said the European Commission was aware of the planned sale and had no immediate comment on its potential impact on Albania\u2019s accession bid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kushner, via his company Affinity Partners, is negotiating to purchase the formerly uninhabited, 5-square-kilometer island in the Adriatic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6049,2437,1580,2372,946,6050,20,6051,51,674,2962,150,59,1873,220,2967,56,1161,221,6052,224,6053,399,6054,5,25,58,1178,21,11,233],"class_list":{"0":"post-10261","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-albania","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-courts","11":"tag-crisis","12":"tag-cyprus","13":"tag-development","14":"tag-donald-trump","15":"tag-edi-rama","16":"tag-energy","17":"tag-energy-crisis","18":"tag-enlargement","19":"tag-environment","20":"tag-foreign-policy","21":"tag-greece","22":"tag-intelligence","23":"tag-investment","24":"tag-iran","25":"tag-jared-kushner","26":"tag-kaja-kallas","27":"tag-kyriakos-mitsotakis","28":"tag-military","29":"tag-montenegro","30":"tag-negotiations","31":"tag-pedro-sanchez","32":"tag-russia","33":"tag-ukraine","34":"tag-united-states","35":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","36":"tag-vladimir-putin","37":"tag-war","38":"tag-war-in-ukraine"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/russia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}