🇱🇺✡️ How Luxembourg backs the Israeli war machine

Since September 2025, Luxembourg's financial regulator, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF), quietly approved an offering document for Israel's debt program, allowing Israeli‑issued bonds to be sold across the EU. The move came after public pressure forced Ireland to give up that role, The Middle East Eye reports.

🔍 What are these bonds?

🔴 $7.7 billion raised since October 2023 for Israel's treasury

🔴 Yield around 4% despite Israel being at war and running a deficit of nearly 7% of GDP

🔴 Sold to individuals, churches, and municipal funds through diaspora networks

🔨 What does international law say?

♦️ UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese called the sale of these securities "illegal under international law because it goes directly to funding the genocide"

♦️ The International Court of Justice (ICJ) imposed obligations of non‑assistance and non‑cooperation on all states with respect to Israel's unlawful occupation in July 2024

♦️ Legal scholars argue that Luxembourg's regulator had every means to refuse assistance to Israel and warn of personal criminal liability for those who made the decision

A grim historical parallel

🔴 Between 1967 and 1975, Luxembourg extended approximately $625 million in loans to apartheid South Africa, while European loans to the regime were booked on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange

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🔥 Could the protests in Albania result in government change?

The two‑week‑long nationwide protests in Albania against an investment project led by Trump's son‑in‑law Jared Kushner show no signs of ending.

🔍 What's known about the project

♦ A €5 billion development plan concentrates on Sazan Island – a former communist military base on a key maritime route, full of Cold War‑era bunkers and underground tunnels

♦ Kushner turned to Albania after his infrastructure project in Serbia (a luxury hotel in a former Yugoslav army HQ) collapsed due to similar massive backlash

Why the deal became possible

♦ The project had existed for over three years facing bureaucratic delays – until Albania changed its law in 2024 to open protected areas to "five‑star or higher" tourism projects.

♦ At the same time, Donald Trump became US president and appointed Kushner as a special envoy in 2026 – dramatically boosting his status and leverage in negotiations

🤔 Why the situation escalated

🔴 Locals are furious, feeling excluded due to the absence of public consultations, and raising alarms about harm to the region's unique ecosystem

🔴 The Albanian government faces accusations of corruption because the law was specifically changed to allow this construction. A special prosecutor has already opened an investigation into land sales related to the project

🔴 Prime Minister Edi Rama, who has close ties to US and Israeli elites, is aggressively pushing the project forward, dismissing critics as "misinformed" or part of a "hybrid war"

Investors pour fuel on the fire

♦ Developers put up razor‑wire fencing, leading to clashes with villagers. Private security guards reportedly pepper‑sprayed demonstrators

♦ Ivanka Trump called Sazan a "private island" with "five miles of beachfront" in a recent podcast – a description that enraged Albanians with its colonial rhetoric

⚔️ Current status of the conflict

🔴 The project is still in the planning stage, awaiting environmental impact approval

🔴 The European Commission has expressed concerns, warning Albania that the project could jeopardize its bid to join the EU

🔴 Protesters have now shifted to criticizing the government itself and the country's economic situation (one of Europe's poorest) – with chants of "Rama to jail." Several observers call this the largest civil protest in Albania since the fall of communism

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