Facts and information regarding Sazan Island and Zvërnec

Prime Minister Rama presents a summary of facts and information related to Sazan Island and Zvërnec:

TO ALL INTERESTED FOREIGN PARTIES AND INDIVIDUALS, who have spread all kinds of misinformation and launched all kinds of baseless attacks all over the globe against a highly ambitious project, with the potential to become another role model for how next-generation tourism destinations can be built, where development and nature advance together rather than at each other's expense.

Here you go:

FACTS BEYOND THE MURKY CHANNELS OF THE INTERNET, OR A REALITY CHECK FOR ALL THOSE WHO HAVE MALIGNED THE ALBANIAN STATE

SAZAN ISLAND is state property and has never been intended, nor requested, to be sold.

• The proposed way of making this state-owned land available for transformation into a world-class tourism destination is through the participation of the state in the investment itself. Based on a detailed negotiation process, the state would receive shares as an involved party, while the island would remain, at all times, the property of the Albanian state.
• Negotiations are still ongoing and no final agreement has yet been reached. In parallel, the investors have continued their development studies, but they have not yet submitted either the architectural project or the relevant environmental assessment.

The above speaks for itself regarding the dignified and professional approach of the Albanian government in protecting the interests of the state and the public. The investors, for their part, have shown full respect for our institutions and an exceptionally cooperative spirit. Not a single square meter of Albania has been put up for sale. No one has struck any deal behind the people's backs. The Republic of Albania has been represented with unquestionable dignity in a negotiation process that remains open.

THE INVESTMENT AREA IN ZVËRNEC is privately owned land, registered in the cadaster for many years. The development plan for that area is the result of agreements between the investors and the owners holding registered property titles in the cadastral registry, exactly as happens in countless cases of private property development. The investors purchased the land from those owners and are currently the legitimate owners of the property in question.

• As sometimes happens along the Albanian coastline, there are also other claimants to the land. In this case, not one group, but two. On one side are two families claiming the property as former owners, while on the other side are numerous families claiming it as former members of the communist agricultural cooperative. All parties have taken their claims to court.

• However, under Albanian law, as under any legal system in the world that protects private property, third-party claims cannot prevent the development or sale of property by the entities that have it registered in the cadastre. The registrations in this area were completed long before the current governing majority came into office.

• It so happened that SPAK had an open investigation into one of the sellers of the property, in relation to a separate matter. At the request of prosecutors and by decision of the court, the amount paid by the investors for the purchase of that part of the property was executed as a valid transaction in favor of the investors, but instead of being transferred to the seller, it was deposited into a frozen bank account.

• The seller will not be able to withdraw that amount until the investigation is concluded. If justice determines that the amount does not belong to the seller, it will be confiscated and transferred to the state compensation fund for property owners. This means that if, and only when, a court rules in favor of one or more of the claimants to the property in question, they will be able to receive from that fund the amount to which they are entitled.

The above clearly shows that the purchase and sale of the property in Zvërnec has nothing whatsoever to do with the government. It is simply the most basic relationship between private parties, within a system where the right to private property is a fundamental human right. At the same time, the above also shows clearly that the justice institutions have acted not only in full independence, but also in the interest of the state and in defense of private property rights, both when they considered the transaction carried out by the investors to be lawful and when they decided to place the amount in an escrot account.

INTEREST IN THE ZVËRNEC INVESTMENT was formally expressed in 2024, when the investors submitted a masterplan to the National Territorial Council. That masterplan was also made public on the television program Opinion by one of the company's architects.

• The masterplan was reviewed at the meeting of 25 September 2024. The National Territorial Council did not approve the masterplan, but instead required substantial revisions, setting the bar at the level of the ambition for an exemplary development for Tourism Albania 2030 in the European Union.

• The requirements for reducing the intensity of development, providing special measures for the protection of the lagoon, the surrounding habitats, and the environmentally sensitive parts of the development area are documented.

• One year and several months later, on 30 March 2026, the investors returned before the National Territorial Council with a new draft masterplan reflecting the parameters requested by the Council. At that meeting, the NTC approved the development permit, which is not a construction permit and does not authorize the commencement of construction works, but merely opens the way for the project preparation phase. Meanwhile, for the above-mentioned permit to be formally issued and enter into force, the legal and technical conditions must be fulfilled, and the work of the architectural team involved is ongoing.

• It should be borne in mind that, in order to obtain a construction permit and authorization to begin construction works, after the development permit is formally issued, the developer must submit a detailed architectural project together with the necessary technical documentation.

• The permit to fence the private property intended for development, issued by decision of 29 April 2026, is part of the legal procedures granted at the request of the property developer in order to enable field measurements, monitoring activities for the environmental study, and other preliminary preparatory measures that are necessary for the technical documentation of the construction permit.
• In parallel with the territorial planning procedures, the developer has officially submitted a request for an Environmental Impact Assessment, for which the relevant state structures have been engaged in accordance with the law.

• Following the completion of the preliminary screening and scoping phases, the competent state environmental authority decided on 15 May 2026 that the project must undergo not merely an ordinary Environmental Impact Assessment, but an In-Depth Environmental Impact Assessment.

Consequently, before the final implementation documentation of the project can be approved, and before any application for a construction permit can be reviewed, the developer is obliged to prepare and submit an In-Depth Environmental Impact Assessment.

• This assessment must analyze thoroughly and with unquestionable professional competence the potential impacts of the development on biodiversity, habitats, ecosystems, landscape values, and other elements, in accordance with Albanian environmental legislation and with the relevant standards, legislation, and regulatory framework of the European Union.

• In this specific case, it has been required that the In-Depth Environmental Impact Assessment examine, among other things, the potential effects of the project on protected habitats and species, ecological connectivity, coastal and lagoon ecosystems, landscape integrity, and long-term environmental sustainability.

• The findings and recommendations emerging from the In-Depth Environmental Impact Assessment, as well as the opinion formed by the relevant authorities on the quality of the assessment, will serve as a point of reference for any further decision-making related to the progress of the project.

• The claim that the protected status of the relevant development area was removed in order to pave the way for this investment is one of the greatest falsehoods inflated beyond all imagination against this colossal investment for Albania.

Naturally, the allegations built upon this falsehood have also unjustly damaged the unquestionable moral, legal, and professional integrity that the Albanian state and administration have demonstrated throughout the handling of this investment, which has a potentially extraordinary impact on Albania's Gross Domestic Product.

• The "Pishë Poro-Nartë" area has never changed its category as a "Protected Landscape" since 2004, when it was first designated as such. It has therefore been, and remains, a protected area classified as Category V under the IUCN, namely a Protected Landscape. This is also clearly specified in the Council of Ministers Decision of 25 September 2024, which absolutely did not change the status of that area, but only clarified its defining criteria.

• This area has no connection whatsoever with the Vjosa Delta, despite deliberate attempts to blur the distinction and create the impression that the delta will be affected by construction. That is impossible, because the Vjosa River, along all 480 kilometers of its course, together with its tributaries and its mouth on the Adriatic, enjoys the highest level of protection as a National Park, Category I, and is now part of UNESCO Biosphere ecosystems.
• Our system of protected areas is based on the international classification framework of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which applies different levels of restrictions to each category of protected area. The Law on Protected Areas, adopted in 2017 as the first law to directly incorporate European biodiversity directives, fully integrated these categories into the national legal framework.

• According to the criteria set by the international framework, Category V is not a "no-development" area, but a protected landscape where biodiversity, natural values, and human activity must coexist in a harmonious and sustainable manner.

• The 2017 law was not affected by any 2024 amendment with regard to its express provision, in line with the European standard, that a Protected Landscape may include settlements and other forms of land use.

• More specifically, Article 20, paragraph 4, written as far back as 2017, provides that activities bringing changes in land use, including construction works, wastewater treatment plants for farms, highways, navigable canals, urban developments, and other infrastructure or development projects, may be carried out only after the relevant permit has been obtained from the National Territorial Council.

The above says a great deal. Those who, in Albanian and especially in foreign languages, have publicly maligned Albania and its government through comments, reports, articles, or all kinds of output from the insane eruption of social media channels, as if they were synonymous with a Banana Republic without a state, without institutions, without a flag, and without dignity, would do well not to forget these facts next time they are tempted to mistreat our country.

The entire sequence of facts in this story shows the world that Albania is not a country without rule of law; that Albanian institutions function with integrity, professionalism, and without any complex toward foreign investors; and that the Government of Albania leads Albania with vision and dignity, as demonstrated by the country's epochal transformation and substantially renewed image, despite the entirely undeserved mudslinging of recent days, whether driven by anti-Trump hostility spilling across borders or by the darker pathologies of the digital age, where the central place of facts has in recent weeks been occupied by a vile spectacle of gossip, fabrications, accusations, and denigrations echoing everywhere in the name of a shameless pseudo-anti-corruption mantra.

WHAT IS CURRENTLY AWAITED:

• Completion of the documentation required for the formal issuance of the development permit;
• Submission of the application for the construction permit with a detailed project, together with all relevant technical documentation;
• The document of the In-Depth Environmental Impact Assessment;
• Analysis by the relevant authorities of the findings and recommendations of the In-Depth Environmental Impact Assessment;
• The study on the environmental impacts of the project on biodiversity, habitats, ecosystems, landscape values, and other environmental components;
• Guaranteeing the compliance of the submitted project with Albanian environmental legislation and with the environmental standards, legislation, and regulations of the European Union.

THE FACTS ARE ABOVE.

ANYONE WHO TRIES TO DRAG ALBANIA BACK DOWN WILL NEVER SUCCEED AGAIN.

ALBANIA WILL NOT BE FRIGHTENED BY BIG DREAMS.

THE ALBANIAN PEOPLE WILL NOT HIDE FROM ANY GREAT CHALLENGE.

TOGETHER, WE WILL MAKE EUROPEAN ALBANIA THE PRINCESS OF MEDITERRANEAN TOURISM, AND WE WILL SHOW ALL THOSE WHO SMEARED OUR STATE IN THE WORST POSSIBLE WAY THAT ALBANIA IS DEAD SERIOUS ABOUT ITS DEEP TRANSFORMATION