We are reaching out to spatial planning educators, researchers, and institutions across Europe—including the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP)—to draw urgent attention to the escalating crisis in Albania. What began in May 2026 as the peaceful “Flamingo Revolution” against destructive, large-scale developments in sensitive coastal and urban areas has intensified into a critical struggle over territorial governance, institutional integrity, and democratic freedoms.
At the center of this crisis is the systematic dismantling of spatial planning principles. Legislative changes—such as the Law on Strategic Investors and revisions to nature protection and planning laws—have centralized territorial power directly under the Prime Minister. This framework allows executive authority to bypass both local and national planning instruments under the guise of “strategic development.” By utilizing internationally renowned architectural firms to legitimize these top-down projects, rapid urban transformations are turning Tirana and the Albanian coastline into speculative enclaves— as a new “Dubai of Europe”—while facilitating corruption and organized crime connections. When spatial instruments are erased, planning ceases to be a public mechanism for spatial justice and environmental stewardship, becoming instead an instrument of land capture and autocratic power.
In response to months of ignored civic protests, students took to the streets on October 13th to demand fundamental rights and systemic reform, facing excessive police force and severe state pressure—including a 2,500 Euro bonus promised to every police officer on the frontline of the protests, alongside direct threats from the Prime Minister that participating students will lose their right to scholarships, higher education, or future employment in public authorities. Demonstrating academic solidarity, researchers and lecturers signed a petition supporting their students, while marching in the streets together with them, and requesting their requests to be fulfilled.
This situation directly challenges core European planning values of public participation, environmental protection, transparency, and the rule of law. Without asking academic institutions to adopt partisan positions, we call on the European planning community for international attention, independent scholarly scrutiny, and solidarity with Albanian educators and students peacefully defending spatial integrity and fundamental freedoms.
