REPUBLISHED

A “tailor-made law” for Jared Kushner, too?

Erblin Vukaj · Originally published: 8 April 2026

Jared Kushner’s project for the island of Sazan is increasingly establishing a clear precedent for the way the government rewrites laws and procedures to serve a private investor.

The recent statements by Zamira Sinaj, the Socialist MP for Vlorë, in the Parliamentary Committee on Tourism make this reality undeniable.

She openly acknowledged that the amendments she proposed on 6 February to the law on tourist ports were, in effect, a kind of “tailor-made law” favouring Kushner’s investment. According to her, if the law were not changed as she had proposed, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law would withdraw from Sazan.

At the same time, Sinaj said the government was considering extending the strategic investment law for the seventh time. Presented in 2015 as a temporary instrument, ten years later it is proving to be a permanent mechanism for preferential treatment.

These two developments, together with the fact previously reported by Citizens.al that negotiations over Sazan should have concluded on 13 November 2025 and have continued beyond every formal deadline, without transparency or competition, point to a policy favouring Jared Kushner and the other major developers covering the coast in concrete.

From no competition in practice to abolishing it by law

Ever since Kushner publicly presented the project in spring 2024, his proposal has been marked by a lack of transparency and competition. No international call for proposals was opened for the island, and there was no alternative competitive process.

But the latest development takes this further.

Sinaj, a former dean of the Faculty of Economics at Ismail Qemali University in Vlorë, proposes that when an investment has “strategic” status, tourist ports included in it should no longer undergo competitive or concession procedures. Instead, they would be built and operated directly by the investor.

In other words, the strategic investor would automatically acquire the rights to and ownership of the ports. Even the terms of their contracts would no longer be determined by law, but by decisions of the Council of Ministers, known as VKMs.

At its core, this is a shift from the absence of competition in practice to the elimination of competition by law.

The explanatory memorandum accompanying Sinaj’s bill makes the nature of this change clear.

First, she acknowledges that the proposal does not seek alignment with European Union legislation. The implication is that it seeks to bypass the legal standards and procedures that guarantee competition and the transparent management of public assets.

Second, the former dean of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Vlorë states in the memorandum that the proposed changes would bring no additional revenue to the state budget.

Under the procedures laid down in the current law, awarding ports involves fees, concessions or profit-sharing through partnerships, leases or temporary use. Here, those mechanisms disappear and the ports are effectively given away.

Third, the memorandum itself acknowledges that the aim is to create “special treatment” for the investor. We have, then, a model that removes competition, removes the benefit to the state and legitimises privatisation through preferential treatment.

In practice, these changes give investors not only the land and the beach, but now the sea as well.

How is Kushner expected to benefit?

Through the requested change, “strategic private investors” would automatically get the sea, too. In the case of Kushner’s proposal, he would gain Sazan’s only port, in Shënkollë Bay, which has held military importance.

If the project were also to extend to Zvërnec, following ideas made public earlier, the proposed legal changes would enable Kushner to build a second port, creating a line of control over maritime access north of Vlorë Bay. Officially, however, there is no application or status for that project.

This translates into control over tourist port infrastructure and access to the coastline and, in practice, the privatisation of maritime space.

This is a clear case of procedures being captured. It is no longer a matter of favourable interpretations of existing laws, but of rewriting them while extending the strategic investment law.

That law was introduced as a temporary instrument in 2015. In practice, however, over this decade it has been used to create a lasting regime of “selected investors”, chosen largely for their closeness to the government.

Sazan is not an isolated case. It once again reveals the Albanian state’s selective relationships with investors: procedures bypassed, laws transformed and assets privatised without competition, transparency or public consensus.