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"Great damage was done to Serbia", Vučić on Kushner's withdrawal: Albania will gain publicity from the Trump family

2025-12-16 18:42:23Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
"Great damage was done to Serbia", Vučić on Kushner's
Jared Kushner and Vucic

"Great damage was done to Serbia," said the country's president, Aleksandar Vučić, after the news that Jared Kushner's company - son-in-law of US President Donald Trump - was withdrawing from the planned project to build a luxury complex in Belgrade.

On the site of the former Yugoslav Army General Staff buildings, destroyed during NATO bombing in 1999, the investment company Affinity Partners had planned a residential and business complex with the Trump brand.

Vučić said that due to the "witch hunt" that was carried out against the investor and the construction, Serbia lost a valuable investment of at least 750 million euros.

"We missed a great opportunity. Today, Serbia is being talked about badly, because some say this was a bad project. A smaller, or weaker, project that was done in a hurry in Albania has received a lot of attention and will have excellent publicity, because the entire Trump family will praise it," Vučić said, referring to Kushner's plan for investments in Sazani Island in Albania.

"It seems that some people understand the decisions of their leaders better than our people, or a part of our political opposition - ready to act against the interests of their own country," Vučić added.

The project in Serbia was opposed by anti-government protesters, the opposition, and experts, who support preserving the cultural monument status and rebuilding the former General Staff building.

The announcement of Kushner's company's withdrawal was published on December 15 – the day the Serbian Organized Crime Prosecutor's Office filed an indictment against Serbian Culture Minister Nikola Sellakovic for legal violations in removing the cultural monument status of the General Staff building.

In a written statement to Radio Free Europe, investment company Affinity Partners said that "our vision for the Belgrade project was to offer an elegant and inspiring design, reflecting Serbia's progress."

"We are proud of the architecture our team has created. Because meaningful projects should unite, not divide, and out of respect for the people of Serbia and the city of Belgrade, we are withdrawing our application and taking a step back at this time," the statement said.

Vučić blamed the Prosecution and the "blockers" - as he calls the anti-government protesters who have been protesting for more than a year against the government led by the Serbian Progressive Party.

"Personally, I will ensure that all those who contributed to causing this damage are held accountable," the Serbian president said.

He warned that he would “personally file criminal charges” against “all those who participated in the ‘witch hunt’ and the destruction of the investment”, accusing them of “economic damage to Serbia”.

He rejected allegations of corruption in this project.

"There has never been corruption, nor was it its purpose," Vučić said.

Suspicions of document forgery at the center of investigations into the General Staff

The Serbian Organized Crime Prosecutor's Office has been conducting investigations since May into the suspected forgery of documents, which served as the basis for the Serbian Government to remove the cultural property status of the General Staff building in Belgrade.

The director of the Republican Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, Goran Vasic, has already admitted to falsifying the documentation, according to the prosecution.

Based on that documentation, an initiative has been submitted to the Ministry of Culture, which is led by Sellakovic from the ranks of the Serbian Progressive Party, to approve the decision to remove the status of cultural property from the General Staff building.

After the news that an indictment had been filed against him, Sellakovic said that he was "looking forward to the trial, because it will mark the end of the blockers."

The term "blockade" is used by government representatives in Serbia to describe participants in anti-government protests, who are seeking responsibility for the deaths of 16 people from the collapse of a shelter in Novi Sad in November 2024.

Vučić said on December 11 that, if an indictment is filed in the General Staff case, he will pardon all those “suspected of participating in fraud.”

"I will not give them the opportunity to prosecute those who are not guilty. I am the guilty one. I am the one who wanted to modernize Serbia. I am the one who wanted to bring in a big investor," Vučić said.

On November 7, the Serbian Parliament passed a special law that stripped the General Staff building of its status as a cultural asset, paving the way for the construction of a luxury complex.

For Edward P. Joseph, a lecturer and senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, the news of Kushner's withdrawal comes as no surprise.

"The efforts of the Vučić government to seize the property, the building of the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense, to remove it from the register of protected cultural properties and monuments, exploded into a scandal. So none of this surprises me," Joseph tells Radio Free Europe.

He adds that he also raised this issue with the Subcommittee on Europe of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the US House of Representatives, on December 2.

"In my opening statement and then in my responses to questions from members of Congress, I emphasized that President Vučić would not be able to fulfill his commitments for the hotel. I emphasized the strong opposition to the construction of this hotel from across the political spectrum," says Joseph.

Kouchner was engaged in negotiations for more than two years. The initial contract was signed in May 2024. The signatory on the Serbian side was Goran Vesic, former Minister of Construction, Traffic and Infrastructure in the Serbian Government.

The contract stated that Serbia is obliged to remove the cultural heritage status from the General Staff complex "in a manner satisfactory" to Kushner's company, complete the demolition of the buildings, also "in a manner satisfactory" to Trump's son-in-law's company, and the land on which the complex is located, be leased free of charge for 99 years, with the option of free ownership./ Taken from REL

 


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