Albania protests: students riot in Tirana as the young keep leaving

Albanian students joined the country’s anti-government protests this week, and for two nights the protests turned into riots in Tirana. On Wednesday protesters set fire to the first floor of the Education Ministry and attacked the prime minister’s office, parliament, the Constitutional Court and the finance and interior ministries, Balkan Insight reported. The Ministry of Health said 79 people were treated at Tirana’s Trauma Hospital, 61 of them police officers and 18 protesters. Parliament cancelled its session on Thursday.

Edi Rama, the prime minister, says he will not resign. “My responsibility is to listen, address legitimate concerns and keep Albania moving forward,” he said on Thursday, according to the Associated Press. He offered to discuss the rising cost of education, but said that attacking institutions and destroying public property had nothing to do with the students’ demands. Rama won a fourth term last year.

From a wetland to the ministries

The students first gathered on Tuesday outside the Education Ministry. They asked for better university conditions, action on the high cost of living and the government’s resignation. They were called out by the “flamingo” movement, whose daily protests began in June as environmental demonstrations and later turned against the government.

The movement grew out of a deal to sell parts of Albania’s southern coast to a luxury resort backed by Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law. Villagers told Reuters in July that their land had been wrongly sold; Reuters found no evidence of wrongdoing by Kushner, who is not directly involved in their dispute.

Rama blames the opposition for the violence. “These are the hands that seek to pull Albania down whenever it tries to rise,” he said on Thursday, at an office of the College of Europe damaged by Wednesday’s fires.

The young keep leaving

The students’ complaints about jobs and costs sit on top of a long trend: Albanians leave. EU countries issued 68,653 first residence permits to Albanian citizens in 2025, 3.8% more than in 2024, Eurostat’s figures show. From 2015 to 2025 they issued 668,046.

That is a count of permits, not of people: someone who moves from one EU country to another can be counted twice. But the total equals more than a quarter of the 2.4 million people who lived in Albania at the 2023 census. That census counted about 420,000 fewer residents than the one in 2011, and INSTAT, the statistics office, names emigration as one of the main causes.

First residence permits issued by EU countries to Albanian citizens, thousands. Source: Eurostat, migr_resfirst, all reasons, EU27

2015	49.1
2016	57.2
2017	48.6
2018	59.2
2019	61.2
2020	39.6
2021	62.3
2022	79.2
2023	76.9
2024	66.2
2025	68.7

Source: Eurostat, migr_resfirst, all reasons, EU27The Macro Notebook

Most of last year’s permits were for family reasons: 41,480, or 60%, as relatives joined Albanians already living in the EU. Another 14,893 were for work and 2,159 for study.

Few jobs, little spent on schools

Work is scarce for the young. Unemployment among Albanians aged 15 to 24 was 25.6% in 2025, against 16.2% in the EU, according to ILO estimates published by the World Bank. The rate has stayed close to a quarter since 2022.

The state also spends less on education than EU governments do. Albania’s government spent 3.1% of GDP on education in 2023, the latest year available, while EU governments spent 4.7% in 2022, World Bank data show.

The lek did not flinch

Markets have taken little notice. The Bank of Albania’s official rate was 91.28 lek per euro on Thursday, against 91.61 on Monday: the lek gained 0.4% while the protests went on. Albania hopes to join the EU as early as 2028, and Rama said he would “not allow violence to derail Albania’s European future”.

What to watch

On Thursday morning students marched towards parliament. The EU mission in Albania has called for talks: “Constructive dialogue is the only way forward.” The test for the government is whether its offer to talk about education costs separates the students from the wider flamingo movement, whose demand is still Rama’s resignation. The next sign will be whether the students return to the streets on Friday, and whether parliament meets again.