Investigative show Vetting | Armand Kullau

In recent years, NATO has warned of Russia's use of hybrid tactics and economic influence to undermine Euro-Atlantic security, including threats to critical infrastructure. One way to penetrate critical infrastructure is through the use of offshore companies, which mask the true owners.

According to public records, the new Durres port project includes an offshore company registered in Cyprus, which in the past has had an administrative role in structures that have also involved sanctioned Russian entities. This company is currently listed in the documentation as part of the administrative structure of the Porto Romano project, a maritime infrastructure of strategic importance for a NATO member country, which raises questions about transparency and verification standards.

"Vetting"'s research shows that the entire process from design to the final phase for the tender for the construction of the New Port of Durres in Porto Romano could be an affair not only with consequences for the state budget, but could also jeopardize relations with NATO due to the lack of transparency from the Albanian government.

Pirro Vëngu left NATO out of Porto Romano
On October 28, 2025, at the press conference for the new Port of Durres, where the leaders of the Durres Port Authority were also present, Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku would declare that the Port of Durres has been a priority for the Albanian government.

"We have always asked that it be led by professionals who not only know transport, but also have the ability to negotiate with international forces, as the new port of Durrës is envisaged and is in the political will of the Albanian government to be a NATO base, a NATO base located in the heart of the Mediterranean and undoubtedly in Albania, as the most loyal ally of this extraordinary force, extraordinary community," Minister of Infrastructure and Energy Belinda Balluku would declare.

Deputy Prime Minister Balluku's statements are contradictory because they do not match the initial official tender documents for the drafting of the detailed technical project of the new Integrated Commercial Port of Durrës in Porto Romano. In June 2021, the Durrës Port Authority, then under the leadership of Pirro Vëng, today the current Minister of Defense, would open the competition for this tender with a limit fund of 1,14 billion lek or 11 million euros.

Like most high-value tenders, the competition for this tender would be tainted as it would be marked with a red flag by “Openprocurement.al”, the AIS platform. According to the latter, the red flag represents suspicions of corruption, favoring the winning company of the tender by the APD. In the case of Porto Romano, all companies would be disqualified, with the winner automatically being the joint venture of foreign and Albanian companies “HASKONINGDHV NEDERLAND BV”, “ADEC ENGINEERING CONSULTANCY LLC”, “ABKONS” shpk, “TAULANT” and “GEO-ENG” shpk worth 952 million lek.
The propaganda that this would be a strategic tender for the Alliance would fall a few months after the tender was concluded, as former Director Vëngu had left NATO out of the master plan.

In September 2022, an additional 232 million lek would be added to the tender for the merger of the winning companies because a naval base for NATO would also have to be built, doubling the project development period to 15 months, from the initial 8 months.

According to the Durrës Port Authority, the infrastructure project intended for the docking of naval vessels and the yards in service for the Armed Forces did not meet the capacities required by NATO.

The document itself acknowledges that the capacities envisaged in the initial master plan did not meet the Alliance's requirements for accommodating Allied naval assets, including heavy tonnage ships such as destroyers. This means that, at the time of drafting and signing the initial contract, the project was not technically ready for use by NATO, despite public statements.
The tender document indicates that this was not reflected in the initial design and was only formalized through a contractual addendum during implementation.

"Vetting" contacted the central branch in the Netherlands of the company "Haskoning BV" to obtain information regarding the reasons why the infrastructure for NATO was not included in the master plan, a question that remained unanswered.

The Port Authority also had no comment regarding this fact. According to Captain First Rank Artur Meçollari, this port has planning deficiencies.

"Porto Romano emerged as an alternative, at the moment the port of Durres was given. So, to free the port of Durres, another port was needed and the story of Porto Romano was invented, a project that was done without visibility. We do not have a feasibility study in hand. Then, after that, the prime minister, in order to give some kind of visibility, some kind of sustainability to Porto Romano, invented the story of the NATO port, of the NATO base in Porto Romano", declared former deputy chief of the Naval Force for "Vetting" Artur Meçollari.

According to Meçollari, a NATO approach to Porto Romano would give the port sustainability and feasibility. In fact, former Deputy Chief of the FD Meçollari is right that there is no feasibility study for the new port.

"Vetting" made an official request to the Durres Port Authority for a feasibility study for this project, but the Authority refuses to make the document available to us.

A similar concern has been raised by economic expert Zef Preçi, who states that in the official reports of the Durrës Port Authority there are no publications on investments.

"On the official website you find letters of training, trips, outings, but it says nothing about the financial report. How much profit is secured and how will it be invested? The same thing applies to the medium-term budget program, which foresees money, but which is more to keep some secret promise than to bring development, which is related to volumes of goods, which is related to the railway, which is related to the countries of the region", expert Preçi would declare to "Vetting".

Browsing public data, it appears that the Port Authority's Bid Evaluation Committee for the project design tender has favored the merger of the companies since "TAULANT" shpk and "GEO-ENG" shpk do not meet the criteria for annual turnover, which must be 458 million lek at least in one of the years 2018, 2019 or 2020.

This fact is revealed by the institution itself, which for the same reason that it disqualified the merger of the companies “ROGAN ASSOCIATES EL”, “MOFFAT & NICHOL” and “INFRAPLAN”, has not disqualified the group of winning companies. Regarding this fact, until the publication of this material, the Durrës Port Authority and the Dutch company “Royal Haskoning BV” did not give any comment.