Rama calls protests a "hybrid war" by enemies of Albania and Israel, tells Reuters the project will proceed — and a movement that will not stop

Prime Minister Edi Rama has responded to Albania's largest environmental protest movement in a generation with a combination of conspiracy theories, gestures of dismissal, and public defiance. On 5 June 2026 he alleged in a nationally televised speech that the protests were part of a "hybrid war" orchestrated by "enemies of Albania and enemies of Israel," connecting the movement to a conspiracy theory that the project was cover for relocating Palestinians to Albania, which he called "a total fantasy." He claimed that on the first day of protests there were five times more social media users than usual and dismissed demonstrators as "bots" and "fake profiles." On 8 June he told Reuters that Albania would "plough on" with the resort development. On 7 June he was photographed wearing a pink flamingo t-shirt during a visit to Shkodër — the same day protests reached that city — in what was widely interpreted as a provocative mockery of the movement's symbol. He previously stated: "There is no chance for this investment to stop as long as I am here." He has offered to meet a 20-person protest delegation, setting no preconditions, but protesters declined unless heavy machinery and barbed wire were first removed from the protected site. Media analysis by BiEPAG found that several major Albanian television networks distributed AI-generated images falsely attributing the protests to Greek government funding, consistent with the government's "hybrid war" framing. The protest movement has explicitly rejected both major political parties. As of Day 8, demonstrations continue daily, the diaspora is active across eight countries, and the European Commission has formally warned that the project threatens Albania's EU accession path.