And this is precisely where the problem begins.

Because Jared Kushner didn’t arrive in Albania with a shovel in his hand. He didn’t  personally put up wire fences. He didn’t personally declare himself a strategic investor. He didn’t  personally change the logic of protected areas. He didn’t personally place the Albanian state at the service of luxury tourism. Kushner may be the international symbol of the arrogance of money. But the door to Albania is not opened from Manhattan. It is opened from Tirana.

And in Tirana, for more than a decade, the political key has been called Edi Rama.

Ypi’s article clearly sees the danger: Albanian nature is being turned into a luxury commodity, the coastline into an investment catalogue, the islands into yacht dreams, while the people remain spectators on their own land. 

But where it should strike by name, the article begins to speak through fog. It speaks of the “Albanian government”, of “global capitalism”, of “oligarchy”, of “the rules of the system”. All of these are true. But the system does not sign documents by itself. Oligarchy does not vote laws by itself. Global capitalism does not command the Albanian police by itself. And “transition” does not appear at press conferences to defend the resort.

This is done by the government. This is done by power. This is done by Rama.

The Absent Seller

In this sense, Ypi’s article is critical, even though it feels somewhat as if it has been guided by someone, but it is not severe. It is elegant, but not sufficiently fair. It carries a certain hypocrisy of sensitivity toward the protesters, while remaining soft toward the political architect of the model those protesters are opposing. It understands the revolt, but it does not fully name the blame.

The title itself is meaningful: “Look at the protests Jared Kushner has caused in Albania”. But no, the protests are caused by Edi Rama. The protests are caused by a captured state. The protests are caused by a governing model that has turned Albania into a workshop of permits, towers, concessions, and strategic investors. 

But in Ypi’s article, the blame is placed on Kushner. The foreigner is a convenient villain. He is easier to hit. He is safer to mock. Especially for a British or European audience that knows the Trump family as a symbol of arrogant wealth and narcissism.

But for Albanians, the problem does not begin with Ivanka “discovering” an island from a yacht. The problem begins with a Prime Minister who behaves as if Albania were private property to be presented at investors’ tables. The problem begins with a state that bows before billionaires and rises against its own citizens. The problem begins when the government says “there is no final agreement”, while on the ground fences, private guards, machinery, and mass violence already appear.

This is the moment where the article should have become sharper. It should have asked: who allowed this? Who defended it? Who normalised it? Who used European integration as a cover for the privatisation of public assets? Who has turned “development” into the most beautiful word for the disappearance of Albanian nature and property?

Ypi says beautifully that Albania is not for sale. But she does not go all the way in saying who is behaving like the seller.

A Theoretical Fog

The article also carries an old habit of academic left-wing thought: whenever the blame becomes too concrete, it is dispersed into abstractions. It is not Rama, it is capitalism. It is not the government, it is globalisation. It is not laws made for clients, it is ‘the rules of the game’. It is not power, it is ‘the system’.

This is comfortable. In fact, very comfortable. It is like sleeping peacefully in the large bed of theory, where the ideological ghosts of the 20th century whisper that individuals do not matter, only structures matter. Somewhere in that theoretical calm, even the shadow of Joseph Stalin (with whom Ypi has personal experiences) through history and memory  may appear as the distant echo of a world where everything was explained through system, class, and history, while personal responsibility disappeared into the fog of dialectics.

But Albanians do not have the luxury of living in theoretical fog. They live in a country where decisions have names, signatures have dates, companies have owners, permits have institutions, police have orders, and the government has a prime minister.

Therefore, when we speak about Narta, Sazan, Zvërnec, Rrjoll, and the Albanian coastline, it is not enough to speak about a “development model”. We must speak about a model of governance. And Rama’s model of governance is clear: Albania as a luxury showcase for foreigners, as a construction site for the connected, as a tourist postcard for propaganda, and as a country of emigration for its own citizens.

Albania 2030

The greatest irony is that Rama sells this as modernisation. Whenever a major project appears, we are asked to see it as a step toward Europe. As if Europe were a private resort. As if European integration were measured by the number of luxury hotels. As if flamingos, lagoons, monasteries, public property, local communities, history, and national culture were provincial obstacles to the grand dream of “Albania 2030”.

In reality, this is not Europe. It is a new orientalism with a European façade. It is the idea that a small country must accept anything, as long as the investor is big enough. It is the philosophy of submission with a smile: give the land, give the sea, give the island, give the law, give the silence, and in return receive the promise that one day you will look modern in tourism brochures.

Here Ypi’s article has one great merit: it understands that the protest is not simply about the environment. It is about dignity. It is about public property. It is about the fundamental question: to whom does Albania belong?

But again, she stops before the next question: who is treating Albania as if it no longer belongs to Albanians?

The answer is not only Jared Kushner. The answer is not only Ivanka Trump. The answer is not only global capitalism. The answer is also the Albanian power structure that opens the door to this model, publicly defends it, calls it development, sells it as vision, and then accuses citizens of being old-fashioned, politicised, or enemies of progress.

At this point, the article is softer than it should be. It criticises the socialist government, but it does not dismantle Rama as a political figure. It does not place him at the centre of responsibility. It does not treat him as the architect of a system where the strategic investor is more important than the strategic citizen, where public property is weaker than private capital, where the police often appear more careful with power than with the people.

The Ugliness of Power

Ypi writes beautifully about the young people, the protest, the songs, the flowers, the cleaning of the streets. This part is humane and fair. The Albanian protest deserves to be seen as civic, peaceful, and dignified. But the beauty of the protest must not soften the ugliness of power. 

A people who give flowers to the police do not absolve the state when the state remains silent before violence. A protest that cleans the square should not be used as moral decoration for an analysis that does not fully clean up political responsibility.

The article also strikes at the old opposition, and here it is right. The Albanian opposition has for years failed to build moral trust. It has often been part of the same theatre, the same bargains, the same culture of transition. 

That is why the protest is strong precisely because it is not its property. The protest is cleaner than the parties. More credible than exhausted leaderships. More alive than the television studios where the same people are recycled, people who have commented on every crisis and helped produce them.

But if the opposition is captured by the past, the government is captured by the present. And the present has a name, power, mandate, and responsibility.

In the end, Ypi calls Albania a light for Europe. This is a beautiful idea. But Albania cannot be a light for Europe if, inside the country, the state behaves like a real estate agency. It cannot be a light if the government sells nature and public property as promotional assets. It cannot be a light if the people must take to the streets to remind the prime minister that the country is not his property.

Albania can become a light only when protest does not remain poetry for European newspapers, but turns into concrete accountability: suspension of projects lacking transparency, a full investigation of decision-making with arrests and imprisonment, including of PM Edi Rama, real protection of protected areas, judicial oversight, publication of the project documents, an end to private violence, and the end of laws made for select investors.

Therefore, Ypi’s article should be read, but also challenged. It is valuable because it carries the voice of the Albanian protest into an international newspaper whether suggested by someone or not, we will not enter into that story, because we know it. But it is insufficient because it leaves Rama more protected than he should be. It attacks the system, but not enough the man who has built, decorated, and sold this system as “Renaissance”.

In Albania, the problem is not only that Jared Kushner wants a resort.

The problem is that Edi Rama behaves as if Albania was born to offer that resort to someone.

And this is why the protest must not stop at the slogan “Albania is not for sale”.

It must go further:

Albania is not for sale, because Albania is not the property of the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister must be investigated and arrested immediately if he does not resign.

*This article was originally published in Albanian in AlbaniaHistory on June 12. This English translation is published with permission. 

The post A Convenient Villain: How Blaming Kushner for Albania’s Protests Stops at Edi Rama’s Gate – A Response to Lea Ypi’s Article in The Guardian appeared first on Untold.

“You know, Diana, we are in Germany. We can’t use words like genocide or apartheid. We don’t know who will be in the audience, and I want to protect you. If an extreme right person interrupts, I’ll have to interfere and control the conversation. I am totally with you, I understand you, but you know the history here, the culture of memory. Someone might be offended, or not understand you.”

With these words, a German scholar, well established and working in a reputable institute, tried to convince me to choose my words.

It was October 2024, one year into Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Lebanon was also under attack.

And I had just realized that the panel I was invited to, addressing Beirut’s history, would talk about the city without addressing the war Israel was waging against it. So I told him it made no sense for me to speak only about history or music while ignoring the ongoing destruction, erasure, and genocide in Palestine and Lebanon.

He then invited me for a coffee to “discuss” my intervention.

The panel was meant to celebrate Beirut as a city always on the edge, a city that loses itself year after year. The city of intellectuals and culture, the city of cafés and books. A city worth mourning, but only in its metaphors.

Not the suburbs. Not the South. Not the Bekaa. Not that Lebanon.

Not the people whose histories disturb. Their ways of mourning, their rituals of grief, their resistance, are not worthy of their attention, nor part of this story. Maybe they are too mournful, too religious, not refined enough for their taste, for this imagined Beirut, cleaned, curated and made to fit a certain language.

So of course, better to leave aside the ongoing destruction by Israel, the ethnic cleansing, the dehumanization of an entire community. The stories of entire villages in the south being erased. The noise of the histories and memories I would bring into the conversation.

On that same day, a rocket hit Ras el-Nabaa, less than 200 meters from my parents’ home, where my aunts and their families were staying. Just meters away, seconds away… yet a million lifetimes away from me. Bombs, erasure, families gone, memories shattered.

The silence goes on, relentless.

And yet, here I was, sitting there, safe in Berlin, listening to him asking me to watch my words. To be careful with my language, not to disturb the fragility of German history.

He kept reassuring me that he would “protect” me, in case some “extreme right wing” guy, the usual monster everyone fears, would interrupt the panel. Because my words would offend him. Would offend them.

Our words scare them. Our history still unsettles them.

But for him, there was no problem using this fear. No problem disciplining me through his own imagined violence. His history, his memory, was something I was expected to accept. To carry.

***

Since October 7, I have heard so many European scholars, people who built their careers on our region, tell me quietly, in private, that they are “with Palestine”, or that they are ashamed of their government.

Quietly. Always so quietly.

But when it comes to speaking publicly, to standing against what is happening in their own institutions, their silence is so loud. They speak about freedom of expression. They love that phrase. But when it comes to Israel, or to questioning German memory and the structural racism it created in their institutions, suddenly it disappears.

Since I became German, some even laugh about it. They come to me, joking, almost hysterically, creepily: “Now you are part of it. Our German guilt. Our memory.”

They laugh and laugh. And my world turns upside down. They laugh while my memories shatter, piece by piece. They laugh while everything around me loses meaning. They laugh while I live this constant dissonance. Here, in Berlin, everything is calm, yet so disturbing. There, everything is collapsing, yet it makes so much sense.

They laugh and laugh, in silence, living their everyday lives, convinced they are safe in their own small, individual worlds. As if safety was natural. As if it was not built on distance. On silence. On what is not said.

***

It is 9am. A peaceful, sunny day in Berlin. March 2026.

I am sitting in the office. I hear a sound.

Drones.

I feel it in my body. I move in my chair, and I look around. Does anyone else hear it? No one reacts. I look again. I am in Berlin.

I have told myself, with a lot of guilt, that the sound of drones is something new to me. That I wasn’t used to it, nor internalized it. Not yet. Not like my family and friends there. They had become hunted by that sound. I kept telling myself this was not my trauma.

But my body tells me otherwise.

It reminds me that it has already absorbed this fear, the fear of something hunting us from above. It didn’t forget the shiver it creates. Fear travels with us. It does not stay there, nor respect borders. It sits in the body, quiet sometimes, then suddenly very loud.

My body has carried this for years. The fear of planes haunting the sky. We used to call it umm kāmel. It watched us. Today they call it zanāni. Now it hunts, speaks, erases you like a bug.

My heart starts beating fast. I look outside. I am still in Berlin. It’s just the neighbor cutting the grass in this nice, fancy and quiet neighborhood. But in my body, it is a drone. Following me here. Into this calm, safe life.

I ask my colleague: do you feel something?

She says yes.

For a second, I think maybe she feels it too. Maybe she understands something of this. Maybe I am not that hunted.

Then she says: yes, this weather… this long winter in Berlin. It’s so depressing.

Yes, I say. The winter.

***

It always comes back to the same moment. The same questions. The same hunted memories.

February 2024. Sitting at a table with German scholars. More than 20,000 people already killed in Gaza.

One of them, a specialist of the region, was speaking loudly, almost proudly. He was talking about the Israeli war on Gaza, its repercussions in Europe, and the pro-Israel stance of universities. He criticized those who expected more from German scholars.

Then I said: “But German scholars are not really fighting back, nor willing to take a clear stand. Maybe this is the moment to give something back to the places you build your carriers on. Even a little.”

Something changed.

His eyes turned red, his face tightened. He looked straight at me and asked me:

“But do you condemn Hamas?”

The post “Now You Are Part of It. Our German Guilt. Our Memory” appeared first on Untold.

“I only worry about my child,” she said, unfolding medical records worn soft from handling respiratory problems. “The doctor told me I had to move. But we don’t have any place to go.”

Morocco’s government has issued 416 permits authorising the import of European waste — clothes, rubber tires, industrial byproducts — burned as fuel in cement kilns across the Casablanca-Settat region, including within 15 kilometers of her home. In 2024 alone, actual imports reached 821,500 tonnes, nearly triple the annual average of the previous three years, a surge consistent with companies racing to ship before the approaching EU export ban. European corporations save over $52 million every year by shipping their waste here instead of processing it at home. 

Fatima doesn’t know all of that, what she does know is that her son can’t breathe, and that some nights the smell reaches dozens of kilometers from the landfill.

An investigation, based on exclusive trade data from the Basel Action Network, customs records, and Freedom of Information responses, found that European countries shipped at least 36,611 tons of waste to Morocco in a single year — 93 percent of it classified as “reusable” despite declared values as low as €0.10 per kilogram, a price that suggests disposal, not resale. 

The Economics of Dumping

Understanding why European waste ends up in Moroccan communities requires following the money. The arithmetic is brutally simple.

Treating waste properly in Europe costs estimated conservatively about $100 per ton. Shipping it to Morocco and burning it in cement kilns costs approximately $36 to $39. For a company processing 100,000 tons annually, the savings exceed $6 million a year. Across the entire waste trade, European corporations pocket more than $52 million annually — calculated from the roughly $62 gap between European treatment costs and Moroccan processing costs, applied across the 821,500 tonnes imported in 2024.

Data obtained from the Basel Action Network (BAN) covering September 2024 through September 2025, reveals how the pipeline operates. In that 12 month period alone, European countries shipped 36,611 tons of documented waste to Morocco, including clothing, plastics, paper, and electronics. The real volume is likely higher; this figure represents only what was officially recorded under waste codes. Shipments reclassified as “secondary raw materials,” “reusable goods,” or “alternative fuel” before leaving Europe drop out of waste tracking entirely.

Spain emerges as Europe’s primary waste gateway to Morocco, handling nearly 80 percent of clothing exports and two-thirds of plastic waste, 73 tons of worn clothing shipped daily from a single country. Spanish waste management companies profit from both low transport costs across the Mediterranean and Morocco’s minimal environmental oversight.

The declared values tell their own story. Romania declares clothing at €0.10 per kilogram. Poland declares identical goods at €1.02, a tenfold difference for the same customs code. Industry sale prices for sorted reusable clothing run between €0.50 and €1.50 per kilogram; Poland’s declaration sits inside that band, Romania’s far below it. 

The gap suggests not just different markets but different goods—genuinely reusable clothing commands higher prices, while low declared values indicate material destined for disposal rather than resale.

According to the European Environment Agency, the fate of used textiles exported from the EU is “highly uncertain,” with material unfit for reuse mostly ending up in open landfills and informal waste streams. 

Ninety-three percent of waste in the Basel data is classified as “worn clothing.” But industry estimates suggest only half or less of such shipments actually reach secondhand markets. The rest becomes Morocco’s problem—feeding the cement kilns at Jorf Lasfar, Morocco’s largest industrial port zone 120 kilometers south of Casablanca, entering industrial facilities across the Casablanca-Settat region, disappearing into a system with no transparency about what happens next.

Major corporate players are embedded in this supply chain. The French firm CHIMIREC established a Moroccan subsidiary in 2020 to produce “Energy Substitution Fuel” (ESF) for cement manufacturers. When contacted, CHIMIREC Maroc denied any involvement in European waste imports and exports, stating it processes exclusively domestic waste. LafargeHolcim’s Ecoval subsidiary is the country’s primary industrial waste treatment provider. Ciments du Maroc, owned by Germany’s Heidelberg Materials, operates a grinding center near the Jorf Lasfar port, a documented entry point for European waste shipments. LafargeHolcim and Ciments du Maroc did not respond to requests for comment.

Since 2016, the Ministry of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development has issued 416 permits for waste imports, authorizing more than 2.5 million tons of European waste to enter the country. In 2024 alone, imports reached 821,500 tons—nearly a third of the entire decade’s total in a single year, a surge consistent with the approaching EU ban deadline. 

The Moroccan total is larger than the 36,611 tonnes recorded by BAN because the two datasets measure different stages of the same pipeline: BAN tracks European shipments still declared under waste codes — clothing, plastics, paper, electronics — while Morocco’s ministry counts everything that arrives as “recyclable raw materials”. 

The gap between the two figures is essentially the volume reclassified out of the waste category before it leaves Europe. The ministry has described the program as a strategic pillar of Morocco’s circular economy, projecting 60,000 jobs by 2030. The government frames waste as a valuable resource essential for industrial energy, a narrative that obscures the health costs borne by communities like those in Mediouna.

The Loopholes

International law nominally restricts wealthy nations from dumping hazardous waste on poorer ones. The Basel Convention, ratified by over 190 countries, requires “Prior Informed Consent” for transboundary movements of hazardous materials. But that consent, as the convention is written, operates between governments — not between governments and residents who live downwind.

In practice, the regulations contain loopholes large enough to drive a container ship through. 

Reclassified materials require none of these protections. A single word change on a customs form,  from “waste” to “secondary raw material”, transforms a regulated substance into an unregulated commodity.

Trade records obtained for this investigation reveal the scale of the fiction. 93 percent of waste shipped to Morocco is classified as “reusable clothing” or “secondary materials,” but declared values of €0.10 per kilogram suggest these shipments are waste destined for disposal, not genuine merchandise.

According to data collected through a Freedom of Information Request, the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA) told us that between 2020 and 2023, no Italian waste was registered as having been sent to Morocco “for disposal purposes” — but, in the same response, acknowledged that “small quantities” were shipped during 2021, 2022 and 2023 “for the purpose of material recovery.” 

UN Comtrade records for 2023 show approximately 817 tonnes of Italian rubber waste reaching Morocco that year, worth around $427,000. The following year, in August 2024 alone, Morocco’s Ministry of Energy Transition authorised the import of 20,000 tonnes of waste specifically from Italy. 

This glaring contradiction could be the result of a regulatory loophole in how Europe counts what leaves its ports: under EU law, burning waste in a cement kiln is officially classified as “energy recovery” rather than “disposal” .

Through labeling their exported garbage as alternative fuel for Moroccan kilns or misclassifying it as reusable merchandise at customs, European countries can legally erase millions of tons of waste from their disposal ledgers, outsourcing their pollution while keeping their domestic recycling statistics pristine. 

Cristina Guarda, Italian MPE from the Greens/EFA, confirms that the topic is on the European agenda. “The goal is to reduce the areas where opacity can take root, clarify responsibilities throughout the supply chain, and establish the principle that exports are acceptable only if companies can genuinely demonstrate environmentally sound management, with equivalent and verifiable standards”

The Human Cost

One hundred twenty kilometers south of Casablanca, the industrial zone at Jorf Lasfar stretches along Morocco’s Atlantic coast. Container ships dock at a port with 37-million-ton annual capacity. Cement plants rise in silhouette against the sky. Trucks move constantly between the port and processing facilities, carrying material that began its journey in European cities and will end it in Moroccan furnaces.

The health impacts accumulate invisibly. Communities living near Moroccan cement plants face an excess risk of respiratory disease, cancer incidence and mortality, predominantly affecting the respiratory tract in both children and adults. 

Research consistently finds that people living near cement plants are up to nearly five times more likely to report respiratory symptoms than those with no such exposure. In Morocco specifically, occupational cement exposure has been directly linked to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, one of the leading causes of respiratory mortality.

When rubber tires burn in cement kilns without adequate emission controls, they release dioxins and furans, among the most toxic substances known to science, along with heavy metals including lead, mercury, and cadmium. A peer-reviewed study measuring emissions from cement kilns burning hazardous waste found dioxin levels more than four times higher than baseline (1.57 vs. 6.49 nanograms per cubic metre) — and rising further as more hazardous waste was added to the fuel mix, with emissions rising further as the co-processing ratio increases.

A synthesis by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has documented that where emissions controls on such kilns are inadequate, surrounding communities show elevated rates of respiratory, skin, and gastrointestinal illness.

Morocco cannot yet manage its own domestic waste crisis. The Mediouna landfill alone receives 1.2 million tonnes a year and is approaching saturation. In November 2024, the World Bank approved a $250 million programme to upgrade the country’s landfills — a tacit acknowledgement that existing capacity is inadequate before any additional burden from imports. Casablanca cannot absorb more pollution, let alone safely process hundreds of thousands of tons shipped from Europe each year. 

When the government approved more than two million tons of new waste imports from various European countries in August 2024, activist Mohamed Benata of the Environmental Assembly of Northern Morocco called it “incompatible with the spirit of citizenship” and unconstitutional. In 2016, similar outrage over Italian waste imports sparked widespread protests and social media campaigns, forcing the government to suspend the imports. Yet despite this resistance, the waste continues to arrive.

European corporate accountability law, for its part, does not reach far enough to catch what happens after the shipments leave port. The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, adopted by the EU in 2024 to oblige large companies to police human rights and environmental harms across their supply chains, stops at the point of sale. 

“CSDDD ends with handing over the goods more or less,” Miriam Saage-Maaß, legal director at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, said of the directive’s reach. Whether European exporters bear any legal responsibility for what happens to their waste inside Moroccan cement kilns, she added, “depends on how direct EU exporters are connected to the waste burning.”

“The EU is strengthening controls and obligations,” says Guarda, while mentioning the new 2024 Waste Shipment Regulation that sets out stricter rules on the export of waste to non-EU countries. “But the real leap forward must be cultural and industrial,” she adds. “Circularity cannot become an elegant way to outsource health and environmental impacts to other communities. We need a pathway that reduces the problem at the source, increases producer responsibility and leads to waste management that is consistent with climate and health protection objectives, without creating ‘sacrifice zones’ outside Europe.”

Time is running out, but not for the reasons Fatima might hope. From 21 November 2026, the EU will ban all plastic waste exports to non-OECD countries like Morocco, with no approved-list escape route for plastics. For other non-hazardous waste such as metals and paper, exports will be banned from May 2027 unless a country is on an approved list; Morocco submitted its application to be included by the 21 February 2025 deadline.

Whether that ban will actually stop the flow, or simply push it through new classification channels, is contested. When the regulation was adopted in 2024, the Environmental Investigation Agency, an international environmental NGO, warned that its real effect on waste exports would depend on how strictly EU member states transpose and enforce it, and on whether the remaining loopholes are closed. 

One such channel is already emerging inside EU policy itself, in December 2025, the European Commission proposed Union-wide end-of-waste criteria for mechanically recycled plastics, which would allow such materials to circulate across the bloc without being classified as waste at all.

“The longer the chain of parties involved, the shorter the chain of enforcement: controls on thousands of containers travelling through ports are extremely complex. The official data we have on Morocco could be not everything that it’s actually exported, but unofficial flows are undetectable”, says Paola Ficco, environmental lawyer and director of the magazine Rivista Rifiuti.

Back in Mediouna, Fatima remains caught in the middle. While Europe celebrates its recycling milestones and Morocco counts the jobs and greens its image, she and families like hers in Casablanca are plagued by air and soil pollution from domestic and exported waste.

This story was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe

The post Toxic Trade: How Europe Exports Its Waste to Morocco and Calls It Recycling appeared first on Untold.

Since 2013, Albania has been governed by the Socialist Party under Rama, who secured a fourth consecutive term in 2025. His leadership has been marked by strong executive power and centralized decision-making. At the same time, civil society groups and international organizations have raised concerns about democratic standards, including pressure on independent media and political influence over state institutions. According to Transparency International, Albania continues to struggle with corruption, ranking 91st globally in 2025 and relatively low compared to other European countries.

Against the tide

More than two years have passed since the genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza began. This first live-streamed genocide has sparked widespread popular support for Gaza, particularly in Western European countries. While academic, cultural, and tourist engagements with Israel are increasingly viewed as ethically and morally corrupt, the Albanian government has pursued the opposite trajectory. Instead of distancing itself from Israel, Albania has deepened its ties. 

Albania is cultivating closer political and economic relations, signing new bilateral agreements, and aligning itself with Israeli interests across a wide spectrum, including defense, cybersecurity, culture, and finance. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Edi Rama, now in his fourth consecutive term, this trajectory appears undeterred and indifferent to both the immense civilian suffering in Gaza and the growing pro-Palestinian sentiment within Albania.

Against the backdrop of the International Court of Justice’s assessment that a plausible case for genocide exists in Gaza, many governments have grown increasingly cautious about the optics and ethics of (openly) deepening ties with Israel. Some have recalled ambassadors, suspended arms exports, or quietly shelved bilateral agreements. Others, such as Ireland, Norway, Spain, Canada, UK, Australia and France issued formal recognitions for the state of Palestine. 

Albania has charted a strikingly different course. Not only has it continued to expand cooperation with Israel across multiple domains, but it has done so openly and without hesitation. Moreover, it has treated these partnerships as achievements to be celebrated rather than associations with a state apparatus suspected on charges of genocide with its most senior leader warranted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. 

To understand Albania’s current relations with Israel and Palestine, it is helpful to consider the long history of Albanian foreign policy. As a small, economically weak country, Albania has often aligned itself with more powerful states to protect its interests.

Making sense of an unusually close relationship 

Albania gained independence in 1912 after five centuries of Ottoman rule. From 1925 to 1939, the country was ruled by President, later King, Zog. During this time, the country became an unexpected refuge for Jews. This period has even been described as “a golden era” for Jews in Albania. Beginning in 1933, Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution in Germany and Austria began arriving, many using Albania as a temporary stop on their way to the United States or Latin America. 

The Albanian Embassy in Berlin continued to issue visas until late 1938, and King Zog personally supported efforts to protect Jewish refugees. As a result, hundreds, possibly thousands, of Jews passed through Albania before 1939.

The situation changed when Italy invaded Albania in 1939. Emigration became difficult, leaving many Jews unable to leave the country. They remained relatively safe under Italian rule until 1943, when Nazi Germany took control. Even then, Albanian authorities refused the Germans’ demands for lists of Jews. Many Jews were sheltered by officials and ordinary citizens alike. 

Albania was the only European country that had more Jews after World War II than before it. After the war, about half of the Jewish population—around 300 people—left for Israel or other countries. The rest were not permitted to leave and remained in Albania until the communist regime collapsed in 1991. 

When Albania stood with Palestine

In 1949, Albania officially recognized Israel, partly because it agreed with the Soviet view that Israel could weaken British influence in West Asia. However, this did not lead to full diplomatic relations. From 1955 to 1967, Albania ignored Israel’s repeated attempts to establish diplomatic relations, though it maintained contact with the Israeli Communist Party (MAKI). 

Following events such as the Suez Crisis in 1956 and the Six-Day War in 1967, Albania adopted an anti-Israel stance. The country’s leaders portrayed Israel as a tool of imperialist Western powers, particularly the United States.

At the same time, Albania’s communist leader, Enver Hoxha, aligned the country with the Palestinian cause, viewing it as part of a broader anti-imperialist struggle. Albanian leaders viewed Palestine as resisting what they saw as an “imperialist proxy” in Israel. In turn, the PLO’s alliance with Albania was based on anti-colonial and anti-imperialist politics. 

Relations between Albania and Palestinian groups began in 1967 and were influenced in part by shared ties with China. Albania eventually recognized Fatah, partly because of its international profile and its critical stance toward both the United States and the Soviet Union.

However, relations became strained after the 1972 Munich Olympic attack, which Albania condemned as detrimental to the Palestinian cause. As Fatah developed closer ties with the Soviet Union, Albania became suspicious of the Soviet influence within the Palestinian movement. Although the PLO continued to seek closer ties, including opening an office in Tirana, Albania remained cautious. 

In the early 1980s, relations depended largely on Albania’s broader West Asia strategy and the PLO’s relationship with the Soviet Union. Following Hoxha’s death in 1985, his successor, Ramiz Alia, introduced a more flexible foreign policy, enabling closer international engagement. During this period, a PLO embassy was finally established in Tirana.

A wall fallen, a map redrawn

A few years later, following the collapse of communism, Albania shifted its focus toward the West and established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1991. That same year, most of the remaining Jewish population moved to Israel. 

Under the new Democratic Party government, Albania initially reduced its ties with the PLO. However, after joining the Organization of the Islamic Conference, now known as the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation, in 1994, Albania renewed relations with Arab countries. In 1996, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat visited Albania, even as it continued to strengthen its relationship with Israel. In 1998, Albania opened its embassy in Tel Aviv.

Today, Albania recognizes the Palestinian Authority and supports a two-state solution. However, in 2011, Prime Minister Sali Berisha opposed Palestine’s bid for full UN membership, arguing that a negotiated agreement with Israel was preferable.

During his visit to Israel that same year, Berisha emphasized the historical connections between Albanians and Jews, and voiced his concerns about regional security, especially regarding Iran’s nuclear program. Israel opened its embassy in Tirana in 2012.

Deals, drones, and abstentions

Over the past two years, Albania and Israel have signed numerous agreements, covering sectors such as agriculture, education, energy, culture, tourism, defense, and drone technology. Trade between the two countries has also grown quickly. According to Albania’s Institute of Statistics, Israeli exports to Albania increased by over 150% between May 2023 and May 2024.

Israeli investment in Albania is expanding, especially in finance. In early 2025, reports indicated that investors associated with Israel’s One Zero Digital Bank were considering entering the Albanian banking market. Later that year, JET Bank, the country’s first fully digital bank, was established and is owned by British-Israeli businessman Idan Avishai. Other figures of Israeli origin in its leadership include Oliver Hemmer and Rami Solomon.

Meanwhile, Albania has come under scrutiny from human rights researchers. Reports tracking global fuel shipments to Israel during the war in Gaza list Albania as one of 11 countries supplying fuel. These exports are officially presented as commercial, not military. 

However, critics point out that fuel is essential for military operations, including for vehicles and aircraft. According to international humanitarian and criminal law, states and private actors are expected to ensure that their activities do not directly or indirectly contribute, to serious human rights violations, including genocide.

There has also been an increase in military cooperation between Albania and Israel. In late 2025, Albania signed a multimillion-euro arms deal with Israeli defense companies, including Elbit Systems. The agreement includes artillery systems, mortars, and tactical drones, as well as plans to develop domestic production in partnership with KAYO, Albania’s state-owned company. 

Since June 2023, the two countries have officially cooperated in cybersecurity and training, building on the assistance Israel offered Albania following the Iranian cyberattack in July 2022, which targeted Albanian government digital services and websites. 

On 12 May 2026 the Albania-Israel Summit was held in Tirana, for ‘strengthening cooperation in innovation, technology and cybersecurity’ and brought together 40 Israeli companies. Also in May 2026, Elbit registered its Albanian branch with the National Business Center, which will carry out the same activity as in Israel. Earlier in 2025, Elbit and KAYO agreed to reopen the Albanian aviation academy to train military and civilian pilots. 

Political ties have deepened as well. In November 2025, Albania established an “Israel Allies Caucus” in its parliament as part of an international network linked to the Israel Allies Foundation. The group is co-chaired by representatives from both major parties, reflecting broad political support for closer relations with Israel. Israeli sources described the initiative as an example of “faith-based diplomacy,” citing Albania’s history of protecting Jews during World War II as the basis for this relationship.

Between 2022 and 2023, Albania served as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. During this period, Albania’s position on Gaza received significant attention. In October and December of 2023, the UN General Assembly voted on resolutions calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. Albania abstained from voting on both resolutions. 

This pattern continued into 2024 and 2025. Albania abstained from several key votes, including those on ending Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, advancing Palestine’s status at the UN, and a French-Saudi initiative outlining a pathway to Palestinian statehood.

The price of belonging

Albania’s growing alignment with Israel is part of a broader foreign policy pattern. Since the fall of communism in 1991, Albania has positioned itself as a close ally of Western powers. The country has sought NATO membership, achieved in 2009, as well as European Union integration and strong ties with the United States. Closer relations with Israel fit within this strategy. Some analysts argue that strengthening ties with Israel is also a way of strengthening connections with Washington.

This approach was further illustrated in February 2026 when Albania joined four other countries in committing troops to an international security force for Gaza. The initiative is part of a new organization, the “Board of Peace,” which is backed by U.S. President Donald Trump. The organization focuses on post-war governance in Gaza. Its charter was signed at the World Economic Forum in Davos and was later tied to the UN Security Council Resolution 2803 as part of the Gaza Plan. However, its structure has raised questions. Trump holds a lifetime leadership role with veto power, and permanent membership requires a $1 billion contribution. Critics argue that this “pay-to-play” model is unusual for a peace initiative and reflects U.S. political and economic interests.

Prime Minister Rama’s policies highlight a long-standing feature of Albanian foreign policy: close alignment with powerful Western states, sometimes at the expense of independent decision-making or consistent application of international law. High-profile economic deals reinforce concerns about this approach. For example, Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Donald Trump, is leading a $1.4 billion luxury resort project on Sazan Island. Approved with limited public debate, the project aims to transform a former military base into a high-end tourism destination, according to reporting by The New York Times. Critics argue that such projects, coupled with Albania’s pro-Israel stance as a predominantly Muslim country, serve to whitewash and boost Israel’s international image while obscuring its domestic governance issues.

Rewarded for loyalty

In September 2024, Israeli President Isaac Herzog became the first Israeli head of state to visit Albania. He was warmly welcomed by Prime Minister Edi Rama and senior officials. The visit marked a clear step forward in strengthening ties between the two countries. Some analysts argue that such visits also serve Israel’s broader goal of achieving international legitimacy, particularly in regions like Southeast Europe. According to Rexhepi “[t]he Israeli president is travelling to Europe’s peripheries to exert legitimacy, showcasing at home that their leaders can still travel abroad.” Others note that engaging with a Muslim-majority country like Albania helps Israel project a more favorable image in the wider Muslim world.

Albania’s diplomatic positioning at the UN has coincided with closer political ties to Israel. In April 2025, Prime Minister Edi Rama received Israel’s Presidential Medal of Honor. He was praised for his “moral clarity” and steadfast support of Israel during what President Isaac Herzog called “our darkest hour.” This was a reference to the October 7 Hamas attack and the ensuing war. Rama has repeatedly condemned Hamas in public statements, at times comparing the group to the Nazis, and arguing that peace is not possible while Hamas remains active.

Cooperation has also expanded at the ministerial level. In October 2025, Albania’s foreign minister visited Israel, and both countries signed agreements to strengthen cooperation in diplomacy and culture. These agreements include training opportunities for young Albanian diplomats. The visit received significant publicity on social and mainstream media platforms, including stops at Holocaust memorial sites and locations associated with the October 2023 attacks. However, critics point out the absence of public statements addressing the high number of Palestinian civilians killed by Israel.

On the road to Brussels

For countries like Albania, whose EU membership bid remains contingent on goodwill from Brussels and Washington, endorsing, or at minimum not challenging Israeli actions serves as a form of political currency. Albania’s economic, political, and diplomatic moves point to a wider foreign policy strategy characterized by coloniality by proxy. 

This is most clearly manifested through Albania’s absurd participation in the deeply problematic “Board of Peace,” which reflects its willingness to engage in frameworks shaped by larger powers. It also reflects a deeper, often implicit expectation embedded in the architecture of European integration: that aspiring members on the periphery must demonstrate their worthiness through institutional reforms, economic benchmarks, and geopolitical alignment with core Western powers. 

Scholars such as Piro Rexhepi argue that countries in the Balkans, shaped by a history of external imperial domination — from the Ottoman Empire to European colonial interventions — often seek security and recognition by aligning with dominant powers and navigating contemporary global hierarchies. For countries on the political fringes of the “core West,” access to the Western-backed liberal order is also conditioned by silence, oblivion, or, at worst, complicity in the genocide in Gaza. 

In this context, Albania is not merely an eager partner of Israel. It is also performing the role that Western geopolitical expectations have prescribed for it. In this role, Palestinian suffering is not treated as a moral emergency demanding a response. Rather, it is treated as an inconvenient variable to be managed, minimized, and ultimately ignored on the road to Brussels.

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Enable, Rinse and Repeat

Just as they did last year, EU Foreign Affairs Ministers considered the suspension of the Association Agreement with Israel for its flagrant violations of human rights. And just like last year, Spain, Ireland and Slovenia pointed out that the Agreement should be suspended for evident violations of human rights. And just like last year, there was no majority for any concrete action.

Most governments and major media outlets shrugged the whole thing off as just another vote. After all, until there is a clear majority if not unanimity among EU governments, how could the Union act? 

Meanwhile, the media and political debate lost themselves in discussions of complex EU voting procedures or reading tea leaves of possible shifts in key European governments.

This, however, misses the point. Whether such a majority exists or not has nothing to do with the legal obligations of the EU and its member states. These obligations require the EU to act.

Breaking its Own Rules

The European Union is under two major kinds of legal constraints: internal and international.

Internally, the EU’s legal commitment to human rights is hard-wired into all aspects of policy and action by the Lisbon Treaty. This ‘constitution’ says the Union is founded upon “democracy, human rights and fundamental values” and that these must be upheld in every dimension of the EU’s policies and practices. 

In fact, precisely for this ‘hard-wiring’, some argue that Israel’s occupation of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria means that the Association Agreement never ought to have been signed at all.

In addition, Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement says all links are subject to “respect for human rights”. The evidence of Israel’s massive and systematic violations of human rights internally, internationally and of course in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is so well-known and so overwhelmingly vast that it cannot be summarised here. 

Save to say that it has been necessary to invent new terms for what is being done in Palestine (and elsewhere like in Lebanon and Iran): domicide, urbicide, medicide, scholasticide, ecocide, econocide, unchilding, and journocide killing the most journalists worldwide in each of the last three years running – a combined total greater than all journalists killed in the U.S. Civil War, both World Wars, the Korean and Vietnam Wars (including Cambodia and Laos conflicts), the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 Afghanistan war. Not to mention the use of ‘double tap’ or ‘triple tap’ attacks in all these cases: targeting civilians/non-combatants, protected categories (medics, journalists), aggravated by perfidy.

All this is an incontrovertible matter of public record. Even an internal review by the EU’s own External Action Service found Israel had violated international law in Gaza.

For those violations alone, the Agreement ought to have been suspended years ago.

There is no room for interpretation: by the EU’s own internal rules, it should already have suspended the Agreement if not cut relations with Israel entirely.

Breaching International Law

The European Union’s obligations under international law are if anything even stronger.

Take the duty to prevent genocide as an example.

The Genocide Convention establishes a duty to use “all means reasonably available” to prevent genocide. This obligation was confirmed in January 2024 by the International Court of Justice, which also accepted that Palestinians’ right to be protected from genocide ‘may’ be being violated.

As its largest commercial partner, the EU patently has the leverage to act. The European Union and Israel are linked by defence and security contracts and collaborations, and through academic and commercial research relations. The EU has the obligation not to continue any such ties which in any way support those violations.

The same goes for individual states. Two of Israel’s top three arms suppliers are key EU Member States: Germany and Italy. Like any other government, both have a duty not to sell weapons used in the devastation of Gaza, in the colonization and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, and in the unprecedented destruction of South Lebanon.

Hiding Behind Procedures

Yet the European Commission and many Member States in the Council fail to act. Year after year, they hide behind voting regulations to avoid acting on those obligations.

How?

Human rights assessments ought to be routine, but in practice must be requested by Member States which then need to obtain that such reviews be tabled for a vote by the Foreign Affairs Council. As in 2025, reports are usually not tabled on the basis that there is no perceived consensus for suspending the Agreement, or a ‘qualified majority’ to suspend portions of it or agree on sanctions. So, in practice, breaches of Article 2 are never openly discussed or voted on.

For the EU’s rhetorical commitment to human rights to be taken seriously, the assessments of, and votes on, human rights should be transparent, routine and compulsory.

Instead, for decades, the EU has avoided saying how it defines “human rights conditions” or specifying how these should be measured and assessed. It has failed to make reviews regular or transparent. It has made sure that whether those reviews come to a vote or are even tabled is not automatic but is at the Council’s discretion.

It is impossible not to conclude that the self-proclaimed paladin of human rights and fundamental values never intended to take its human rights commitments seriously.

Rules Unfit for Purpose

The fact that there are too few member states willing to vote for suspending the agreement with Israel is entirely irrelevant.

What these votes mean is simply that a majority of EU governments are happy to continue to break their own rules and international law.

The obligation to prevent genocide or crimes against humanity doesn’t suddenly disappear, it cannot be dismissed or deferred just because the EU’s internal procedures are unfit for purpose. If the EU’s procedures result in illegal outcomes, those rules must be changed. They certainly don’t absolve EU leaders of their legal responsibilities.

What is astonishing is not only that the EU is failing to uphold international law or its own principles, it is also damaging itself geopolitically.

The EU’s reputation as a ‘normative actor’ – its influence from promoting universal human rights and democracy – lies in tatters. Its self-proclaimed role as paladin of the rule of law has been reduced to little more than a bitter irony.

European representatives failed to condemn the evident violation of the UN Charter when the US and Israel attacked Iran or when Israel invaded Lebanon just as they failed to support the cases brought against Israel before the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. Ignoring international law in this way helps undermine the international institutions of the ‘United Nations system’.

Consigning Europe to Irrelevance

Europe has nothing to show for all this damage. It is not even sacrificing principle for power. It is weakening and isolating itself.

For the last few decades, European governments have lost political and strategic autonomy by increasingly aligning themselves with the US. The failure to set clear political distance from the US and to use what leverage Europe has, only worsens this isolation and irrelevance. Europe is taken for granted in Washington and is diplomatically irrelevant for China, Russia or Iran, which might have found a respected but relatively independent  interlocutor useful to facilitate diplomacy. 

One example of this is the EU’s striking absence from any negotiations over the conflicts in the Persian Gulf and the East Mediterranean.

Instead, by ignoring the rule of law on Israel while increasing sanctions on Iran and Russia, barely hours before the Iran/US ceasefire deadline, the EU added instability to an already exceptionally volatile and dangerous moment in world history.

In other words, by disregarding its self-proclaimed values, international law and its own self-interest, the EU is consigning Europe to global irrelevance.

The post Hiding Behind Procedure: How the EU Attempts to Sidestep Obligations on Israel – and Why They Fail appeared first on Untold.

Through free-form writing and illustration, the contributors reflect on what divestment can mean for academics of color within knowledge-producing institutions across the Global North. Grounded in the urgency of documenting the present moment and its reverberations in academia, the series reveals how the dehumanization of the “other” has always been structural and systemic.

This story is by Myriam Dalal, with illustrations by Pascale Ghazaly. 

Having a conscience is making everything much harder.

As if we needed one more layer of complication to add to our “survival of the fittest” battle as Arab academics in the west.

Since the start of the genocide in Gaza, and the war on Palestine, Lebanon, bits of Syria and bits of Yemen in October of 2023-which coincided with my appointment as a research associate at a university in Europe- my work plan started incorporating multi-level scrutiny measures:

For the places I’m invited to speak at, the funding that I seek for my activities and projects, the people I collaborate with, the researchers I interact with, the university where I work, and our center’s preexisting/ongoing/future collaborations, as well as the research projects conducted here, the way the university communicates about its international collaborations, etc.

And when you’re already in a space where your very being is attacked every single day, from the moment you open your door in the morning till the moment you go back to bed at night, this means you’re adding to your already achy shoulders a new reason to shrug.

You say it’s the mattress that got you this back and shoulder pain, but you know deep inside that it’s Orientalism, you just don’t know how to explain it to the white physician.

Being an Arab woman of color comes with all its “shades of anger” as the amazing Rafeef Ziadeh would say. The orientalist machine starts from the very state administration to the individual level that seeks to discredit you, belittle you, and fetishize you or in its most positive manifestation, save you…

The post Diaries of an Academic of Color: All Shades of Anger – Notes from an Arab Woman in European Academia appeared first on Untold.

“Almost all rivers in Europe have been regulated, impounded, and channelised. In the Alps, the largest free-flowing river section still preserving its natural dynamics lies along the Tagliamento,” explains Professor Klement Tockner, Director General of the Senckenberg Institute for Climate and Biodiversity in Frankfurt.

For decades, Tockner has studied the Tagliamento, which flows from the Carnic Alps to the Upper Adriatic Sea in northeastern Italy, near the Slovenian border, as a living model of river restoration. Its wide, shifting gravel bed and braided channels preserve the ecological dynamics that once characterised many Alpine rivers. This is what makes it, according to Tockner, “the most valuable river in the Alpine Arc.”

Today, the Tagliamento is under threat. In spring 2024, the regional government of Friuli Venezia Giulia approved plans for a €200 million flood-control barrier between the towns of Dignano and Spilimbergo, as part of its Flood Risk Management Plan. 

“For us, the Tagliamento is identity. It’s the symbol of beauty,” says Valentina Sovran. She is one of the residents of Dignano (Udine) who, in September 2025, travelled to Brussels to submit two petitions calling for the protection of the Tagliamento. 

Strolling on the vast sandy riverbed, where emerging braided channels form small streams and islets, Valentina Sovran and other elder residents recall stories dating back generations, with the Tagliamento always as a protagonist: a grandmother who washed the clothes on the pebbled banks at dusk, the only free moment amid the duties of a large family; a great-grandfather who worked as a boatman before the construction of the bridge of Dignano; or the kilometers walked as young boys from the mountains to swim and play with friends in the gravel beaches.

A Unique Ecosystem Under Threat

The scientific community has also mobilised: Professor Tockner is among the first signatories of an appeal signed by more than 800 international scientists warning that the proposed infrastructure would have a destructive impact on this unique ecosystem. In addition, it would violate multiple EU directives, including the Water Framework Directive, the Birds and Habitats Directives, and the Nature Restoration Law.

The latter, approved in July 2024 as a key element of the EU Biodiversity Strategy, requires Member States to remove obsolete or non-functional barriers and restore free-flowing conditions to at least 25,000 kilometres of rivers by 2030. As Foivos Mouchlianitis from Dam Removal Europe explains, removing barriers improves river connectivity, supports fish populations, and increases resilience to both droughts and floods.

At the time, Italy opposed the measure, together with Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Finland, and Sweden. Now, member states have until September 2026 to draw up a National Restoration Plan. Italy’s approach, however, has yet to change course. 

The Friuli Venezia Giulia regional government and the Italian Ministry for the Environment and Energy Security have already allocated €30 million for infrastructure works on the Tagliamento and designated the proposed ‘lamination barrier’ as a strategic project for flood risk management, which is especially high in the lower Friulian plain, classified as high risk by the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA). 

So Beautiful, Yet So Frightening

While residents in the middle and upper reaches of the Tagliamento River have organised into various committees fighting to preserve the river’s naturality, the situation downstream is markedly different. 

The Tagliamento in Latisana, 45km south of Spilimbergo, appears as a more regulated waterway. The first row of houses along its banks and the historic port – a key hub of trade with Venice as early as the 12th century – no longer exist; in their place stand high concrete embankments built to protect the town. ‘The Tagliamento is so beautiful, yet so frightening,’ says resident Giorgio Mattassi, now retired, as he walks along the river banks.

“We need substantial infrastructural interventions upstream for our safety,” states Sandro Vignotto, a councillor in Latisana. “We don’t care where or what they are; we simply want the process to move forward.” In 2025, Latisana commemorated the devastating floods which hit the town in September 1965, followed by an even more destructive event the following year. 

“People upstream don’t understand that flooding is a tragedy. It destroys lives, animals, and homes; the economy collapses, and people are forced to migrate,” says Giorgio Mattassi, who experienced the floods of the 1960s in Latisana as a child.

In November 2025, a series of floods, caused by abnormally heavy rainfall, struck a nearby area in Friuli Venezia Giulia, producing an estimated €80 million in damages, two deaths, and the displacement of hundreds of people. 

“We recognise the importance of flood prevention,” says Fabio Masotti, a regular visitor to the Tagliamento. A passionate photographer, he loves observing how the braided channels change course and colour depending on their depth and the sunlight. 

He comes to walk on the riverbed with his children and to go canoeing. “But flood prevention solutions should be nature-based and work with nature, not against it. In our territory extreme weather events are increasing due to climate change, aggravated by excessive urbanisation and the overexploitation of rivers, for example, through aggressive gravel extraction. The Tagliamento provides vital ecosystem services and plays a key regenerative role,” he adds. 

Propaganda and Polarisation

Fabio is one of the most active members of the organisation Noi siamo Tagliamento (We are the Tagliamento). Alongside other committees, they organise events, conferences and public meetings to inform the local population. 

According to them, political propaganda has polarised the discussion around the Tagliamento, pitting residents of the valley against those in the middle course. “For reasons of political opportunism, the Region is pushing for large engineering works that would supposedly protect them permanently from future floods. They want the votes from the valley, since those areas are wealthier and more populated.” Fabio Masotti adds. 

The Tagliamento flows into the Adriatic near some of Northern Italy’s most intensively developed tourist areas, including Bibione and Lignano Sabbiadoro, coastal towns that host millions of visitors every year and rely heavily on seasonal tourism. However, scientists warn that flood protection can never be absolute. Instead, efforts must focus on reducing vulnerability, mitigating potential damage, waterproofing buildings, and relocating where necessary.

After months of stagnation and a lack of transparency regarding the Region’s plans for the Tagliamento, the tender for evaluating alternative project designs, as required by law, will be officially launched in February 2026.

Pirates of Tagliamento

“The priority should be to consider what we call a systemic or integrated solution,” Professor Tockner argues. “Instead of a barrier, alternative solutions could include enlarging the river section downstream of Cornino and increasing natural retention capacity there,” he adds. “You could achieve similar flood control while improving, rather than deteriorating, ecological conditions. Protecting nature means protecting people.”

Professor Marco Petti from the University of Udine, who studied the Tagliamento for decades from a hydraulic perspective, also underlines the necessity of an integrated solution. “As an engineer, I don’t think nature-based solutions are not naturalising the river alone is enough,” he says. “But it would be better to distribute water volumes management along the entire river through smaller, less invasive interventions. Relying on a single mega-structure would be damaging.”

Professor Tockner suggests that designating the Tagliamento as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve could offer a way to recognise the inseparable link between nature and culture. “If we are not able to protect the last free-flowing rivers in Europe,” he warns, “then promoting restoration of degraded ecosystems risks becoming obsolete.”

“In ancient times, the pirates of the Tagliamento would go raiding on rafts,” recalls Fabio Masotti. “Today, we feel a bit like pirates too, adventurers and guardians of our River. We need to fight to protect it. We cannot delegate this responsibility to anyone else.”

*This reporting was carried out with the support of Journalismfund Europe

The post The Battle to Preserve the Last Wild River of the Alps – A Photo Story appeared first on Untold.

Two days later, on 13 February, and after weeks of combat which saw tens of thousands killed, The Red Army captured Budapest.

Hungary’s capital had been completely destroyed by war. For most historians, the episode is another tragic chapter in the catastrophic endgame of the Second World War. However, In the post war period, the siege of Budapest became a staple of far-right mythology in Europe. In the 1990s, this breakout attempt by the last remaining Nazi forces in the city became known as the “Day of Honour” to Hungarian neo-Nazis who sought to glorify the fallen soldiers of the Reich. 

The “Day of Honour” 

Every year the “Day of Honour” draws networks of extremists from across the continent. Countries such as Germany, Italy, Sweden, Russia and beyond, have all had some of their most violent and radical far-right groups attend this demonstration, making it one of the most persistent and internationally connected manifestations of European far-right mobilisation in the post-Cold War era.

The day has also grown in notoriety over the years. Not merely for the quantity of participants but for the way it functions simultaneously as a commemoration and a networking event for extremists. In 2025, journalists estimated that thousands participated in a memorial hike from Buda castle. These types of events take place throughout the days leading up to the “Day of Honour” demonstration.

Attendance includes groups like Blood&Honour and Combat 18, who see the failed 1945 breakout as a foundational myth and as a last defence of western civilisation against the spectre of communism and Soviet domination. This narrative is central to transnational far-right identity and is widely considered an act of historical revisionism that is used by these radical groups to air their political grievances.

An International Event

The first “Day of Honour” rally was organised in 1997 by the Hungarian National Front. It attracted around 150 participants, mostly from Hungary. By 2003 the event had grown and the international neo-Nazi group Blood & Honour took over the organisational duties. This period saw the event begin to stabilize and expand. Blood & Honour was officially banned in Hungary in 2004 but the group’s symbolism, such as the strange, malshaped swastika they are associated with, continues to be present at the rally.

In recent years, Legio Hungaria have taken a leading role in organising the event. Founded in 2018, it describes itself as a “national resistance movement” dedicated to preserving what it describes as Hungary’s ethnic and cultural integrity. Legio Hungaria would be considered to be on the more extreme end of Hungary’s far right, openly venerating historical fascist figures, engaging in paramilitary-style activism, and maintaining ties to transnational neo-Nazi networks such as The Nordic Resistance Movement and Hammerskins. 

Legio Hungaria transformed the “Day Of Honour” into the large international event it is today. They also navigated legal restrictions around hosting an open neo-Nazi demo through rebranding certain aspects of the event such as hosting “memorial hikes”. Beyond the march itself, Legio Hungaria has been involved in street mobilisations, intimidation campaigns and has been central in the broader infrastructure of Hungary’s far right.

The estimated 4,000 participants who took part in the 2025 “memorial hike” procession through Budapest, were accompanied by banners, emblems and speeches. One attendee, identified only as Zsolt, told AFP reporters at the time that he came “to honour the heroes… the real Hungarians who defended the city.”

That framing of “heroes” resisting an existential threat is central to the symbolic logic of the event. To many of the far-right participants it is a rare space where their worldview is legitimated and supported. 

State Sponsorship

The international dimension of the Day of Honour underscores this. Unlike far-right demonstrations that remain largely national and insulated, the Budapest gathering draws organisers and attendees from multiple European countries year after year. This is what makes the event more than just a commemoration, but a mass-networking event for Europe’s neo-Nazi scene.

In March 2024, MEPs Daniel Freund and Terry Reintke submitted a written question to the European Commission noting that “neo-Nazi marches glorifying National Socialism” are held annually in Budapest and that thousands travel from all over Europe to take part. They noted that swastikas and other Nazi symbols are openly worn. The question further raised concern over alleged Hungarian state sponsorship of the event through Government ministries and the Military History Museum, which provides space and memorabilia.

That the question had to be asked at the level of the European Parliament speaks to a broader tension in how the event is perceived versus how it is policed. Hungarian authorities have periodically attempted to ban or restrict gatherings connected to the “Day of Honour”. In 2022 the Supreme Court upheld a police ban on that year’s neo-Nazi parade, citing concerns that it could inspire extremism and harm public order. 

Nevertheless, unauthorized marches continued to take place despite the ban. Hungary’s government, who have openly been criticised for far-right and authoritarian tendencies, have not seemed very serious about enforcing the ban.

Police responses during the event window tend to be heavy but controlled. At a press briefing, officials reported increased controls across central Budapest including surveillance of nightclubs frequented by known extremists, checks on underpasses and cooperation with foreign police forces following the arrests of foreign nationals connected to prior disturbances. It is worth noting that these measures also apply to the many anti-fascist groups who come from across Europe to demonstrate against the event. 

In fact, it seems to be more common for counter protesting groups to be stopped on the Hungarian border and denied entry than it is for far-right groups. In 2024, authorities arrested more than 300 individuals in connection with extremist affiliations and weapons offences. This included both “Day of Honour” participants and anti-fascist counter protestors.

Unequal Laws

Police decline to intervene consistently against neo-Nazi symbolism at the march even as they enforce laws banning uniformed protest or totalitarian symbols. This uneven enforcement has . drawn criticism from scholars and civil society

The “Day of Honour” march has provoked resistance, more often from the left than the centre. The most notable moment of resistance, and one which drew international attention to the event, occurred in 2023 when clashes took place across Budapest between far-left and far-right activists. 

Many of these activists had come from across Europe, and the level of violence shocked many in Hungary. A brutal video surfaced from CCTV footage showing a member of Legio Hungaria being viciously beaten by a gang of masked anti-fascists. The incident drew widespread condemnation from many centrist and right-wing commentators, with many on the left claiming that it was a necessary act to counter neo-Nazi extremists. 

The Hungarian authorities launched an international manhunt for the anti-fascists involved and many had to go into hiding across Europe as police forces from Germany, France and Italy assisted the Hungarian police in finding the perpetrators. 

The whole incident became known as the “Budapest Affair” and lasted for over two years, with trials still ongoing. 

German activist Maja T face a controversial trial in Hungary. The nonbinary anti-fascist activist was alleged to have been involved in the violence and was facing 24 years in prison in Hungary. On 4 February 2026, Maja was sentenced to eight years in prison, a verdict that can still be appealed. Whilst people like Maja would have known the risks involved with any sort of violent direct action, a multiple year sentence for beating someone seems wildly disproportionate. 

Many activists across Europe are now facing extradition to Hungary for their role in the affair. 

One of the most high-profile figures to emerge from the aftermath of the 2023 clashes was Ilaria Salis, an Italian anti-fascist activist arrested in Budapest and accused of participating in assaults linked to the “Day of Honour”. Her prison conditions drew international attention after images showing her being brought to court handcuffed and shackled prompted criticism from Italian politicians, human rights groups, and the European Parliament over Hungary’s pre-trial detention conditions. 

Salis was held for more than a year before being released in 2024 after winning a seat in the European Parliament which granted her parliamentary immunity and forced Hungarian authorities to suspend proceedings. Hungary is still seeking to extradite her for trial.

A Growing Trend

The “Day of Honour” does not exist in isolation. It sits within an ecosystem of increasing far-right politics that has flourished across Hungary under the governance of Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party. 

The official state narrative on WWII in Hungary has shifted over time. There is more emphasis put on the Hungarian people suffering at the hands of both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, whereas traditionally the Nazis were generally accepted as the main aggressors and perpetrators of that conflict. This new emphasis helps to create a discursive space within which the far right’s appropriation of history can find liminal legitimacy. 

It is worth noting that the context in which this narrative has grown is largely down to Hungary being under the thumb of a harsh Communist regime up until the late 1980s. 

The memories of that period’s terror are still fresh in the minds of many, whilst the horrors inflicted by the Nazis have been forgotten by many. 

The “Day of Honour” is an interesting case study in how far-right politics now operates across borders and political systems. Global trends are seeing a growing normalisation of far-right events and symbolism, including many that would have been unthinkable in the post WWII era up until now. 

While across the pond, the US American far right has, particularly under Donald Trump, tended toward mass spectacle, personality-driven mobilisation and rapid cycles of escalation and collapse, its European counterparts have often pursued a slower and more institutional strategy. 

The Budapest march exemplifies this divergence. It is not designed to win elections or dominate headlines but to gradually build networks and normalise extremist talking points. As far-right parties gain parliamentary footholds across the western world and extremist subcultures continue to organise transnationally, the “Day of Honour” illustrates how radicalism no longer depends on sudden breakthroughs or charismatic leaders to endure.

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In this conversation, Ozoma discusses her work, the current political situation in the US, how to bring change in the tech industry, and her sources of inspiration. 

Enrico De Angelis: You mentioned in your conversation with Tammarian Rogers that today it would be even more difficult to speak out loud for people who want to denounce cases of discrimination, harassment, or problematic behaviours in the tech industry in the US. Can you elaborate on that, and tell us about the general atmosphere today in your country? 

Ifeoma Ozoma: The reason why I said that is because of what we’ve seen already in the US with our federal government, the State Department, and the White House, taking very targeted retaliatory measures against even green card holders, threatening citizens with the revocation of their passports. So none of the retaliation from the government is hypothetical anymore. We’re seeing it happen all the time. And we’re only hearing about the cases with people who have access to media. 

There are so many more cases that I’m sure we haven’t heard about and we may never hear about because they’re people who are less resourced, which is exactly what authoritarian regimes do: They go after the people who have the least ability to fight back or have their stories told. 

And then, on the tech company side, both anecdotally and in the data, we’re seeing tens of thousands and cumulatively hundreds of thousands of people laid off. I have no doubt that many of those folks who are being laid off are people who have spoken up at some point, and they’re just added to the numbers of folks who are let go as part of a reduction in force. 

And so, especially in a society with zero social safety net, when your job is tied to your health insurance, tied to your ability to live, your ability to pay your rent or your mortgage and to provide for your family, what we’re seeing are not theoretical risks for people speaking up. They’re real immediate and long term risks for people. And so I think just overall, it’s so much harder for people to speak up. 

EDA: The situation is getting worse despite some substantial legal improvements you also advocated for (in 2022, in California the “Silenced no More Act”, a law that places restrictions to confidentiality provisions in work agreements, was approved). How do you explain these developments? Is it the general political atmosphere, or rather other factors more related to the tech industry? 

IO: It’s all of it. The law that I worked on was at the state level. We still don’t have federal protections that actually cover people to the same extent that the law in California and in Washington and a number of other states do. So, in the event that you’re working for a company, and you happen to be in one of those states, you have some legal protections. But of course, they hire people all over the country and all over the world. So unless you are in a jurisdiction where you are covered, you are totally left on your own. 

Moreover, the few measures that we used to have in the United States, like the “Equal Employment Opportunity Act” (EEOC), the Commission and other federal agencies that are supposed to deal with labor issues are now much weaker, as many of their lawyers have been fired by this administration. 

The people in charge are not folks who are aligned with workers anymore. And so you have a much worse case even if your situation is heard or taken up. If you file at the federal level now, you’re just as likely to have them make a ruling in favor of your employer. 

And I think from our perspective as advocates, we have to be understanding of that and careful not to ask people to martyr themselves. 

EDA: During the last two years, the role of tech companies in wars, as we have seen particularly in Gaza, has come to the surface as never before. Is there a direct connection between your work in terms of protection of workers’ rights in tech companies and this aspect in particular? In other words, does protecting the rights of tech workers in the US have an impact on tech companies’ complicity with human rights violations abroad? 

IO: It’s absolutely connected because those who are working in the kinds of positions that I used to work in, in these tech companies, are the most privileged folks in the tech worker ecosystem. And so if companies are successful in silencing their ‘white collar’ workers in the United States who have the most means, the most money, and the most access to lawyers,  then what of the folks who are doing labeling in East Africa and in Southern Europe and in Southeast Asia? 

And what of the folks even further down the chain who are in mines and basically in slave labor conditions in Congo and in other areas? So it’s all very, very connected to me. If you’re able to silence people in your offices on issues that are already settled in law, then you’re making sure that no one is able to speak up about what they’re seeing when they’re being told to program things for drones that will end up killing people in Ukraine, in Gaza, in Sudan, and wherever else, because all of it is connected. 

EDA: You mentioned the importance of adopting pragmatic approaches in order to bring change and avoid what you call the typical analysis/paralysis many activists suffer from. In the context of the US, you say you were inspired by the strategies of the environmental movement, like exerting pressures on shareholders in order to force companies to change their behaviours. You stressed also that we should accept that we live in a capitalist society and recognise its power balances, and act accordingly. Do you think this type of approach is effective also when it comes  to addressing the relationships between tech giants and weapons industries? I ask this especially since you said that in your case the leverage was money (as shareholders have to pay  lawsuits for example) and not racism or gender discrimination. In other words: what if that economic leverage doesn’t exist? Or, as you mentioned, when the wider political atmosphere is particularly hostile, as it is today? 

IO: I think it depends on where you are, but certainly in the United States, in Germany, in the UK, you’re not going to be very successful when the government is also supportive of arming folks who are carrying out genocide. And so if you don’t even have leverage with your own government, then you’re not going to have the kind of leverage you need with shareholders. 

You certainly aren’t going to have leverage inside the companies with the individuals who are making money off by arming attackers in a genocide and arming those like the Israeli government, like the Russian government, like the UAE that is operating in Sudan. 

Yeah, it’s all really terrible and so I think part of why there has to be global engagement and global connections between activists is that even though we’re not able to do much in the US, our folks who are in Ireland and able to put pressure on a government that actually agrees that genocide is wrong is then able to leverage pressure. Because many of these companies have international headquarters in Dublin. All of it is connected and so we have to be working together to figure out where there’s the ability and where’s the political space to put pressure on the companies, even if it’s not directly from the US, directly from the UK, directly from Germany. 

EDA: You said that one of the lessons we should learn in Europe while observing the US is that things can indeed get worse from one day to another. But trends are quite clear. Things are already getting worse here too: far right parties are winning or at least gaining consensus; freedom of speech is being repressed, and welfare eroded. In this context, how would you think your practical approach should be adapted? 

IO: The answer is always the same: to diversify the approach. And I think it also means working with different types of activists. So I think in the advocacy space, we’re so good at siloing ourselves. Like: ‘oh, I’m the group that works on human rights’, ‘I’m the group that works on immigration issues’, ‘I’m the environmental advocate’, when all of these things are connected. 

And so folks need to be working together. If a labor action is able to get things moving in France, then that’s the type of action you need to do. If environmental issues are more salient in Germany, then you can use different parts of the activism ecosystem to target the same companies and to target the government in different ways. 

You know It’s so interesting that World War II was not that long ago. So in theory, it shouldn’t be curious to people that fascism can take over in Europe in general, country by country and very quickly. History is not that separated from us and yet two generations past people completely forget what happened in their own countries, even if some of the people who witnessed those events are still alive. 

And so for me it is really infuriating that we can be so close to it and people can still act like, oh, there’s no way that it could happen here. 

EDA: During the conversation with Tammarrian Rogers, I really liked when you said that change in tech companies doesn’t pass only through those who are strictly “tech workers” but also other worker figures, with smaller wages and rights. So here are two separated questions: where are we in terms of organising across different types of workers in the tech industry? And, second: across different countries?

IO: I think the companies understand exactly how important it is, and that’s the reason why they’ve worked so hard to silo groups. So that, even in one company, you may literally not be able to reach out to and communicate or engage with folks who are doing work for the same company because they’re using countless different contracting agencies. 

The primary mechanism that they’ve used was to ensure that their engineers aren’t able to be in communication with even the data labelers who are ensuring that they’re able to feed all of this information into a large language model. So it is incredibly important that folks working on the coding of these systems understand that their work would be impossible without the people making cents a day, cents an hour in Kenya and in Bangladesh and in other places to label the information. 

But the companies have ensured that there isn’t the ability to directly communicate. And that’s where I think journalists actually have a huge role to play because they’re the ones who help to tell these stories. Like Time Magazine did a huge series on the Kenyan data labelers who have been doing both content moderation for companies like Meta and then the ones who are now doing a lot of the labeling for Large Language Models (LLMs). 

And the same for folks in Venezuela and in South America who are doing a lot of the labeling for these systems and looking at really horrific content because the companies know that no one would be willing to do it in Western Europe or in the United States, and certainly not at the pay that they’re able to exploit people with in these other countries. 

EDA: Are there no more traditional initiatives from below, like labor unions? 

IO: Not organizing, unfortunately, but I do know that there are a number of organizations like Tech Equity in the United States and others who have been doing reports. And they actually worked with a large labor union in the United States to do a report on how people in this chain of work are being exploited. 

But it’s next to impossible to do old school organizing because they’re not even at the same company. So the way that the companies have set up this work is you may work for OpenAI, but the people doing the data labeling are at 10 different contracted agencies so that the company can state legally that they never actually hired these people. They were just hiring the work through a contract with X, Y, Z agency. 

EDA: I want to finish the interview asking you about sci-fi writer Octavia Butler. In 2020 you founded a consulting firm, Earthseed, whose name is inspired by a political-religious movement in the novel “Parable of the Sower”. What place does she have in your work? 

IO: When you read Octavia Butler, it looks like she knew it all. I mean, if I believed in time traveling, she is surely an example of someone who has time traveled because she knew exactly what would happen and how it would happen. And that’s why her work moved me so much. But the core tenant of Earthseed in the books is that God is ‘change’. If anything is true, it is that things will change and we have our own role to play in changing things. 

And so that really is what I have believed in, that like so many of us can feel overwhelmed by the fact that so many horrible things are happening all of the time and what power do we have as individuals to change it. And what I really took away from her writing and what I try to live with day to day is that I can’t change absolutely everything but I can change small things that I have the ability to touch. 

So in my case, I have a background in political science and public policy and I know how laws are made. That is one thing that I can do. Can I change Hollywood? No. I have no experience in that. Can I go and change who becomes the president? I don’t have billions of dollars, so I don’t have the ability to buy the next president, unlike someone else. 

But where I can, in my own small space with my own expertise and my own networks, make changes, that is what I’m committed to. 

We all need to step up because I feel a lot of the power of authoritarians is in making people feel powerless. That there’s absolutely nothing that individuals have the ability to do, so they might as well just go along with what is happening to them and around them. 

The post Breaking the Code of Silence: Workers Rights and Systemic Change in Tech – A Conversation with Ifeoma Ozoma appeared first on Untold.

Vicente Campos Rubira is a 54-year-old palmerero, a centuries-old craft involving the cleaning, cultivation, and harvesting of dates. Campos Rubira lives in the rural outskirts of Elche, a small town on Spain’s Costa Blanca. It is home to Europe’s largest palm grove, founded between the 8th and 10th centuries CE during the Arab conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. 

Since 2000, the urban area of the palm grove has been recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, in order to protect it and the traditional irrigation system it relies on from urban expansion and the consequent risk of disappearance. However, this recognition excluded the traditional occupations linked to the Palmeral, such as that of the palmerero. 

Today, this typical profession of Elche is threatened by the European safety regulations, which no longer allow palm trees to be climbed using traditional methods. In response, palmereros are now claiming a new UNESCO designation: to recognise Elche’s city as a World Heritage Site in order to preserve the Palmeral in its entirety, including its traditional crafts and techniques.

On a break from work, Campos Rubira welcomes us into his home, hidden among shrubs and palm trees—a dwelling that blends Gaudí-inspired modernism with eco-architecture. It seems to emerge from the very ground it stands on. The details give it a fairytale charm: a beige wall embedded with pebbles held together by mortar, rounded contours, a chimney reminiscent of a honey dripper, and a column crafted from a palm trunk. 

We step inside and gather around a well-worn wooden table in the kitchen. Holding a terracotta cup in his hands, Campos Rubira tells us his story: “When I started out, most palmereros believed the trade was destined to disappear. It was grueling work, and hardly any sons wanted to follow in their fathers’ footsteps. The tradition was breaking, and there was a widespread belief that a new generation wouldn’t emerge.”

Campos Rubira began the profession at the age of 20, after completing a workshop-school program in the Palmereria, the first course of its kind where he learned the fundamentals. For generations, the palmerero trade was passed down from father to son. For him, who lacked any ancestral ties to the profession, gaining acceptance was an uphill battle. “In their minds, if you didn’t come from a family of palmereros, you couldn’t become one,” he recalls. “For every person who supported you, ten more would rather see you fail. It was as if they wanted to watch you sink, just to see if you had the courage to rise again.”

Ultimately, he endured. Campos Rubira carried on the craft, and even became a prominent voice in the broader fight for its legal recognition. Today, he serves as secretary of the Asociación de Palmereros de Elche (Apelx), an organization founded in 2008 to bring together palm cultivators and advocates for protecting their traditional techniques.

A History of the Palm Grove

Luis Pablo Martínez Sanmartín is a historian, anthropologist, and Cultural Heritage Inspector for the Generalitat Valenciana. It was his commitment that allowed Elche’s first UNESCO recognition in 2000. Martínez Sanmartín recalls that the path to UNESCO status began with a simple question: How old is the Palmeral? Among competing theories, he was able to demonstrate that this sophisticated feat of hydraulic engineering dates back to the 8th–10th centuries CE. Drawing on aerial photography, archival images recovered from the Museo de Puçol—which documents rural life in Elche—and historical records, he concluded: “The palm grove is contemporaneous with the founding of the Medina of Elche.”

He highlights that the Acequia Mayor—the main irrigation canal—irrigates the Palmeral via numerous secondary channels, runs directly beneath the Muslim medina, even passing under the foundations of what was once the residence of the Muslim wali, the Alcázar de la Vila Murada.

The Arabs who arrived from North Africa, under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus, quickly figured out the limitations of the Vinalopó River—its average flow barely reached 0.3 cubic meters per second—and the salinity of its waters. This prompted them to rationalize the use of the available water resources, distributing them for both agricultural and domestic purposes, while also selecting plants and trees capable of thriving under saline conditions. Among these were date palms, pomegranates—one of the iconic symbols of Elche—and alfalfa. “A collective intelligence conceived how to make productive use of lands that, until then, had remained unirrigated,” remarks the historian.

The result was a fortified agricultural city structured around an advanced irrigation system known as the Palmeral of Elche. UNESCO acknowledgment covers only urban huertos (orchards). These consist of some 45,000 date palms spread over 144 hectares. Yet, including the rural palm groves, the number rises to nearly 200,000 palm trees. Although the largest palm grove in Europe has earned international accolades and recognition, threats to its survival are always lurking.

By the late 19th century, a railway line bisected the urban Palmeral. While this development paved the way for Elche’s rise as Europe’s leading footwear manufacturing hub, the urban expansion it triggered—particularly from the 1960s onward—put immense pressure on the palm grove. Homes, schools, and entire neighborhoods were built on land that once formed part of the huertos of the Palmeral. In response, the Law for the Protection of the Palmeral was passed in 1986, followed by the General Urban Plan of 1997, after earlier legal frameworks had proven insufficient. Still, urban sprawl continued unabated.

A Way of Life

The palmerero craft itself has also undergone remarkable changes over the past 30 to 40 years, recalls Antonio García Soto, a 53-year-old palmerero and member of Apelx: “We used to climb using esparto ropes, barefoot or wearing esparteñas—shoes made from plant fiber. A strip of cloth was all we had to protect our kidneys. Then came nylon ropes with thin steel cables inside.” 

García Soto inherited the craft from his ancestors and is now passing it on to his two sons, Alejandro (24) and Toni (20), who work by his side. “In the countryside, agriculture was always practiced hand in hand with the palm trees and all the customs that came with them. It’s always been more than work—it’s a way of life,” he notes.    

Such customs are what gave birth to the tradition of the palma blanca (white palm): each year, between late June and early July, palmereros select healthy trees and clean the base of their central shoot—the heart of the palm. They then wrap the top in an opaque sheath to block out sunlight and halt photosynthesis. Within 30 to 45 days, the leaves lose their chlorophyll and turn white. The palmereros harvest them between August and September, handing them over to artisans who transform them into intricate creations for sale or display during Palm Sunday celebrations.

Every participant in this process embodies an irreplaceable craft in the cultural fabric of Elche, and a living testament to the deep bond between these trades and the city’s palm grove.  

In the past, palmereros had no safety equipment to protect them from the serious risk of falling. Climbing and pruning tall palms was inherently dangerous. It wasn’t until the early 2000s that safety measures—borrowed from mountaineering—were introduced: harnesses, rope anchors, and climbing boots with hooks.

While these systems proved effective, European legislation added extremely stringent safety standards: Directives 2006/42 and 2009/104 of the European Parliament and Council, along with harmonised standards EN 280 and EN 280-2, constitute the legal-technical framework regulating high-altitude pruning. Under this regime, the use of aerial work platforms (AWPs) is mandatory. 

The problem is that AWPs do not always allow reaching the same heights that can be achieved through rope climbing. As a result, the palmereros no longer feel free to perform their work as they used to. This impacts not only the traditional technique of the palmereros, which should be preserved, but also the effectiveness of palm tree maintenance.

According to García Soto’s view, the legal framework is fundamentally incompatible with their practice: “Regulations designed for tree pruning have been applied wholesale to the work we do with palm trees. We’re caught in a legal vacuum,” he explains. “Our trade has a distinct identity here in Elche.”

Regulations vs. Tradition

The European directives—transposed into Spanish national law through Royal Decree 1644/2008 and other regulations, have effectively pushed the profession into a legal grey area. This is because the European directives implemented by the Spanish state include exceptions—that is, it would be possible to climb palm trees using traditional methods where mechanical means cannot be used. However, the law does not clearly define these exceptions. 

Moreover, the European directives directly clash with Law 6/2021, which seeks to protect and promote Elche’s palm grove, and explicitly recognizes the palmerero as an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC, “Bien de Interés Cultural”). This law should, in theory, safeguard traditional techniques. Yet, a specific protection plan (Plan Especial de Protección) that would give the law concrete implementation has been languishing for years, with its approval repeatedly delayed by Elche’s municipal council.

“The city council itself is dismantling our craft,” denounces Campos Rubira sharply. “If the law declares us a BIC, and the administration is supposed to protect us as such, then it’s obvious they don’t understand what ‘protection’ actually means.”

Meanwhile, José Antonio Román Benticuaga, the Partido Popular (PP) city councillor for the environment, acknowledges the impasse: “We’re in a kind of no man’s land. I’m well aware of the palmereros’ demands, but this is national legislation—it’s not within the City’s jurisdiction. We’re trying to establish contact with the Ministry to find a way forward.”

As they await institutional change, the palmereros have begun taking matters into their own hands. They are now campaigning for Elche to be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, hoping to include their traditional know-how among the cultural practices deemed worthy of preservation. “With such status, we could go to the European authorities and push for a revision of the legislation—so that platforms are no longer mandatory. Not to eliminate them entirely, but to leave room for alternatives,” Campos Rubira explains, laying out a pragmatic vision.

If successful, this would mark the fifth such recognition for the Valencian town, after those already granted for the Palmeral of Elche, the double Mystery Play of Elche, and the Museo Escolar Agrícola in Puçol.

Grassroots Resistance

Compounding these issues, in 2006, the red palm weevil epidemic—originating in Southeast Asia—struck Elche as well. Between the civic awareness that emerged in the wake of the UNESCO designation and the urgency brought by the invasive beetle, various grassroots organizations sprang up, including Volem Palmerar. 

Founded by Asunción “Susi” Gomez in 2008, the association fights for the tangible protection of the palm grove. “Many people see it,” says Gomez, 65, “but they don’t really understand it. They don’t grasp why it’s so important.” A retired biologist, Gomez recalls how, during the outbreak of the insect pest, the municipal authorities mishandled the situation: “They had thought that cutting down trees in large numbers would have been enough to stop the pest from spreading. They acted without any scientific advice whatsoever.”

Fortunately, that experience never reached a level that could destroy the palm grove—on the contrary, it remains vigorous and still holds its primacy. Today, Gomez advocates for the restoration of the Palmeral to its original role: a productive agricultural zone where all the traditional knowledge it embodies is actively protected. It’s a vision shared by the palmereros themselves, like Miguel Ángel Sánchez Martínez, 45. Specializing in date cultivation,  Sánchez founded Apelx and later the Association of Date Producers.

On his extensive estate, he cultivates the local Confitera variety in a plot separate from the Medjoul, interspersing them with orange, pomegranate, and almond trees. In the context of Israel’s ongoing tragic genocide of the Palestinian people, Sánchez shares: “I now have a client with over 100 stores across Spain who used to buy Medjoul dates from Israel. As part of a boycott, they now source their dates from us—and have become our largest customer.” Busy with countless tasks, when asked about the political commitment to the Palmeral, he reflects: “To me, it seems no one truly loves the palm trees the way they should. Palms are the icon of Elche.”

For Antonio García Soto, “Politicians use the palm grove and the palmereros for their election campaigns. They showcase the city’s values, the traditional trades with big banners. But a month later, nothing remains.” Still, the future climbs alongside him. Imagining what it’s like to be atop a palm tree like a palmerero, as the city awaits recognition of its UNESCO designation, his son Toni, shares his feelings: “I like working up high. It makes me feel calm—it gives me peace.”

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