Rama in Brussels: the Sazan and Zvërnec investment could reach 6 billion euros. Investors come for the country’s potential

Prime Minister Edi Rama spoke at the Euronews 2026 Summit about major investments in the tourism sector, the projects in the Sazan and Zvërnec area, and the debate on economic development and nature protection. Rama stated that Albania is trying to attract one of the biggest tourism investments in Europe, announcing that the project combining the island of Sazan with the peninsula of Zvërnec could reach a value of 6 billion euros or even more.

“Today we are trying to bring the biggest investment in Europe in many years in tourism, which, combined between the island of Sazan and the peninsula of Zvërnec, could reach 6 or more billion. We have opened up as a country. People are looking at where the opportunities are. Albania has the conditions to work with big investors in a serious and professional manner — but also because they like me,” Rama said.

Asked about the criticism and protests that have accompanied discussions on the development of Sazan and whether such a climate could affect the perception of foreign investors, Rama said the interest in Albania is linked, in his view, to the country’s economic and tourism potential. Rama said discussions on the investment with Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, and the company from Qatar began at a time when Trump’s political future in the United States was still unclear.

“I must tell things as they are. It is not that I say it, but you at Euronews, by inviting me. Ten years ago it would not have happened that the prime minister of Albania would be invited to a tourism summit to talk about tourism, and it would not have happened that a prime minister would always be asked ‘come, come,’ and I am privileged. The real reason they came is not political and is not linked to Trump. But Donald Trump’s son-in-law, together with a very large company also in tourism from Qatar, found it very attractive to invest in Albania. The conversation began when it was not clear whether Donald Trump would go to the White House or to jail. It has nothing to do with that, but with Albania’s potential, with our ambition to do something that is next-generation tourism,” Rama stated.

According to him, the new tourism model should not pit economic development against nature protection, but should intertwine the two.

“Next-generation tourism should not be the result of a conflict between development and nature, but, on the contrary, the result of development together with nature. On the other hand, the way we develop today should not rely on conservation stereotypes, but on the need for regeneration,” he said.

The prime minister also addressed criticism over interventions in the Zvërnec area and the Narta lagoon, arguing that this area faces environmental problems that, in his view, require intervention and regeneration. Rama clarified that the development projects in the Sazan and Zvërnec area aim to involve specialists from various fields, so that the project intertwines tourism development with the area’s natural elements.

“For all those who say: ‘Ah, this lagoon!’, nobody knows how polluted that lagoon is and how many problems we have with all kinds of trees in that area, which need to be preserved through regeneration. The idea that nature will take care of itself if we are there and do nothing for nature is completely baseless. This is what we are trying to do with the greatest architects, engineers, the best hydrologists and geologists, to come up with something that will be a destination where nature will be the one that stands out and where people will spend their holidays and Albanians will get back everything they deserve from this — which means a very strong economy,” Rama stressed.