It’s nice to know a president, especially if he’s your father-in-law.
Hardly had the ink dried on President Donald Trump’s inaugural speech then the Albanian government approved a massive $1.4 billion island luxury development project linked to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Reuters reports.
While the plans to develop the uninhabited Sazan Island, once a military base in the Bay of Vlora across the Adriatic Sea from Italy, have been in the works for months, final approval was granted last week, just days before Trump was inaugurated as the nation’s 47th president.
The decision was rubber-stamped by the country’s Strategic Investment Committee, which is controlled by Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama, 60, once a fierce Trump critic who has had a change of heart.
An admirer of Hillary Clinton, Rama in 2016 said a Trump victory would be a “disaster.” He called Trump “an embarrassing American in the eyes of the world.”
Rama said, “God forbid, America elects Donald Trump as president.”
This is not to say that the project would not have gone forward had Trump not been elected. It is just to point out how easier things are made if the president has your back, and you are dealing with a country where most politicians have a price.
Kushner is partnered in the project with Affinity Partners, a $4.6 billion private Saudi Arabia equity company. It has plans for an adjacent hotel and condo project along the mainland outside of Vlora that has been criticized for potentially wrecking the region’s protected ecosystem.
Sazan Island was used as a military base by Italy during World War II and the remains of military fortifications abound. On top of that, hundreds of aging concrete bunkers, built during the reign of paranoid Communist dictator Enver Hoxha, dot the island. There are still munitions buried underground. Hoxha died in 1985.
In addition, the Soviet Union used the island when it was on friendly terms with Albania. After the relationship ruptured the Soviets abandoned a fleet of submarines in a base by Vlora. They eventually rotted and sank.
The Sazan development project, which calls for the creation of one thousand jobs, will be a boon to Albania and its economy as well as to Rama, who faces stiff competition as he seeks reelection in May. It also represents a defeat for environmentalists.
The competition comes from Sali Berisha, 80, a former president and prime minister, who is seeking a comeback, and who the Biden administration campaigned against and sought to jail.
Edi Rama, with the support of the Biden administration, has gone after Berisha the way Joe Biden went after Trump, seeking to destroy him as an opponent.
He had Berisha investigated, accused him of political corruption, had him thrown out of parliament and placed under house arrest. He has recently been released, and he is running against Rama.
Contrary to protocol, the Biden-appointed U.S. ambassador campaigned for Rama in the last election and then U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared Barisha “persona non grata” over unannounced corruption charges made eight years after Berisha left office.
Berisha maintains that Blinken went after him because of his longstanding criticism of George Soros, who one time sought to do to the Albanian criminal justice system, such as it is, to what he has done to the criminal justice system in the U.S.
The Blinken family has close ties to billionaire George Soros, who recently was awarded the Medal of Freedom by Biden.
In any event, the project will proceed, and Rama, like many others, has walked back his criticism of Trump. In New York recently the prime minister said he did not really attack Donald Trump personally anyway. “I didn’t attack the president, but the candidate,” he said, whatever that means.
And even before the Trump victory, Rama met with Kushner and his wife Ivanka to talk about the Sazan development project and give it his blessing.
More importantly, it has President Trump’s blessing as well.
In return, there is the possibility that as payback Trump will help Albania get into the European Union, something it has been trying to do for years.
It’s amazing what can happen when there’s money to be made.
Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter. He is the author of three books on Albania, including “The OSS in World War II Albania.” Email him at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com