Albania’s government has given preliminary approval to a plan proposed by Donald J. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to build a $1.4 billion luxury hotel complex on a small abandoned military base on the Albanian coast.
This project is one of several involving President Trump and his extended family that directly involve foreign government agencies moving forward even as President Trump is in charge of foreign policy related to these countries.
The approval from Albania’s Strategic Investment Committee, led by Prime Minister Edi Rama, gives Kushner and his business partners the right to accelerate negotiations to build a luxury resort on 1,400 acres of land on a 2.2 square meter site. The mile island of Sazan is connected to the mainland by ferry.
Mr. Kushner and the Albanian government did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday. But when previously asked about the project, both men said their ratings were not influenced by Mr. Kushner’s relationship with Mr. Trump or their efforts to win favor with the U.S. government.
Asked about the project in an interview with The New York Times last year, Rama’s spokesman said, “It makes us very proud and happy that such a prominent American entrepreneur is interested in investing in Albania.”
Affinity Partners, a private equity fund that receives about $4.6 billion in funding from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, mainly Saudi Arabia, is pursuing a project in Albania with Kushner and Asher Abehsera, a former real estate executive. We teamed up to build the project in Brooklyn, New York.
The Albanian government will now work with its U.S. partners to remove potentially buried munitions from the proposed hotel site and investigate other environmental or legal issues that must be addressed before the project can proceed, according to official documents recently posted online. . from now on.
The document, dated December 30, states that the government “reserves the right to revoke its decision” following final project negotiations.
Kushner’s company said it plans to build a five-star “eco-resort community” on the island, transforming “a former military base into a vibrant international destination for hospitality and wellness.”
President Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, also said she was helping with the project. “We’re going to execute it,” she said of the project in a podcast last year.
The project is just one of two major real estate deals Mr. Kushner is pursuing with Mr. Abecerra for foreign governments.
Separately, the partnership received preliminary approval last year to build a luxury hotel complex at the former Ministry of Defense building in Belgrade, Serbia, which has stood empty for decades after being bombed by NATO during the 1999 war.
Serbia and Albania have pending foreign policy issues with the United States. Both countries are seeking continued support from the United States in their long-running effort to join the European Union, and officials in Washington are trying to persuade Serbia to strengthen ties with the United States instead. Of Russia.
Virginia Cantor, a former White House ethics lawyer during the Obama and Clinton administrations and an ethics adviser at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said that even without attempts to gain influence with President Trump, government dealings involving the Trump family have the following consequences: impression.
“It’s all like giving them access to Kushner because they want to be on Trump’s good side,” said Mr. Canter, who is now at the State Democracy Defenders Fund, a group that tracks federal corruption and ethics issues. “It seems like favoritism,” he said.
