Edi Rama

Edi Rama

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Edi Rama

@ediramaal

Jun 9

@SenSanders With all due respect, Senator, Albania is a country, not a line in an American political argument. I genuinely appreciate your interest, but the facts on the ground are rather different from the headlines. And when headlines become the source of understanding, half-truths have a tendency to grow into bigger and bigger lies by the day, amplified by the very platforms about whose distortive power you have spent so much time raising public awareness. (The fewer than 10,000 protesters somehow becoming 100,000 in your post is perhaps the least harmful amplification of outrage among many.) There is still no approved project, no construction permit and no final design. What exists today is a planning process involving some of the world's leading architects, landscape designers, environmental experts and social-impact consultants, working on a vision for high-end sustainable tourism with measurable environmental gains, more green space, more trees and stronger biodiversity outcomes. Disagreement is legitimate. Environmental scrutiny is welcome. That is how democracies should work. But declaring something an environmental disaster before it even exists is something else entirely. What rises on Albania's coast will be decided by our vision, our laws, our institutions and debated by our own people. But it will never become hostage to the fear of dreaming big, thinking big and investing big. Our challenge is not to choose between nature and development, but to prove that nature can be regenerated and development can be reinvented by building with nature rather than against it, for the benefit of both people and the environment. We welcome serious investors who come to build, create jobs, raise living standards and respect our rules. What we do not need is imported outrage, ideological reflexes or the transformation of Albania into a prop in somebody else's political theatre. Facts first. Always. Because Albania is not a backdrop for foreign political battles. It is a small but a proud free country making its own choices and determining its own future. And with all this being said, I hope you will remember Albania even after the headlines move on. Better yet, I hope you will come and see for yourself our beautiful country, which is rising to the historic challenge of becoming soon a proud member of the European Union, where no project affecting nature can move forward without meeting some of the strictest environmental standards, assessments and legal requirements. That is precisely why we should trust facts, institutions and due process more than headlines, assumptions and viral outrage. And perhaps because you have spent so many years warning about the dangers of misinformation, you might also appreciate that reality deserves at least the same chance to be heard as the stories told about it. Let me say that all this is a good reason to invite you to be our guest in Albania, where as engraved in the ancient Albanian Code of Honor, our houses belong to God and the Guest.

Sen. Bernie Sanders

@SenSanders

Jun 9

In tiny Albania, over a hundred thousand people have been in the streets against an environmentally disastrous luxury resort planned by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his Qatari billionaire partners. This is what global oligarchy looks like — and the people are saying NO.

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