Entela Koja, an urban architect, has called the law on tourist ports, approved yesterday in the plenary session of the Assembly, a national betrayal and a dangerous precedent for the management of strategic assets.

In her statement on the show "This Week" on News24, Koja emphasized that the law directly affects ports, which according to her are of particular strategic importance for the country, raising concerns that these spaces are being "forgiven" to certain interests.

She also criticized the procedures followed, emphasizing that the initiative for a national strategy was undertaken in a hasty manner and approved within a very short time, without broad consultations and without transparency.

"I want to get into the technicalities a little. The main precedent is the forgiveness of ports."
The law on the forgiveness of the remaining areas includes ports that are under the military. If previously the competence was the president's to give approval for these areas, with yesterday's law, this competence is given to the prime minister. Suddenly in 2020, the initiative for a national strategy is opened and within a week it is approved. This was one of the serious oversights, these projects need an in-depth feasibility study where it is determined who changes destination and is resettled and not reallocated as the former Minister of Infrastructure said, and she said somewhere there without knowing the exact location. This shows how superficial it is, not to say that no study was done.

There is no environmental and social study, this should be understood. Ports are not ordinary spaces. Our fate is that we have a long coastline and what is being talked about is not a marine line, but this map showed how within a week the government changed the destination. So they announced the project and within a week we have this approved scheme in December 2020. The main ports have turned into tourist ports. Even Sazan has been given the tourist port sign. They are basically ready to be privatized as the port of Durres set the precedent. I want to bring to your attention the film "Confrontation" where it talks about the submarine 105 and where the Russian admiral when the submarines were leaving Albania, says: We will wander in the Mediterranean like a Jew in the desert and we will no longer find Vlora. No, it shows how important ports are. Having access to the sea, the land can also turn into an almost independent city-state. Ports are strategic and very important in a country and states that do not have the luxury of having so much coastline like us, it is national treason. It does not matter what name is found behind this.
"The change of destination, now we only have commercial ports," she said.