Serbia Accelerating Trump-Kushner Hotel Despite Controversy

All of the controversy surrounding a Trump Tower project in Serbia is doing little to prevent lawmakers from moving the development ahead at a record clip.

Lawmakers in the European nation voted to designate the redevelopment of the Belgrade site in question as a priority, Bloomberg reported. The designation allows the site to be rapidly cleared in anticipation of the $500 million project.

“The buildings there were first hit by NATO bombs, [and] are now being demolished by corruption,” opposition lawmaker Savo Manojlovic said in a parliamentary debate this week.

Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic ushered the legislation through as he continues to try to strengthen ties with President Donald Trump’s administration. Vucic is dealing with mass protests that began springing up a year ago after a railway station canopy collapsed, killing more than a dozen people.

Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners laid out plans last spring for a two-skyscraper project with 175 hotel rooms and 1,500 luxury apartments.

The development site is the former headquarters of Yugoslavia’s army, destroyed by NATO bombing before the turn of the century. It was given a protected status in 2005, which Vucic vehemently opposes.

The protected status was removed last year as Affinity signed a 99-year lease for the site. But the controversy was only beginning.

Goran Vasic, the acting director of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, allegedly confessed to forging a document that allowed for the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense headquarters in Belgrade to be demolished. The investigation into the scandal only added to Vucic’s resolve, though.

Critics of the development claim it stinks of a sweetheart deal for Kushner and Trump; this is the first official collaboration between the Trump Organization and Affinity.

Donald Trump Jr. made several trips to Serbia in the past year to show support for Vucic.

— Holden Walter-Warner