The head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Tirana, Grant Van Cleeve, has addressed a public letter to Prime Minister Edi Rama and some of the highest officials of the Albanian government regarding the project and tender for the new port of Porto Romano.
In his letter, Van Cleeve describes this project as a once-in-a-century decision and requests the postponement of the tender scheduled for March 9. According to him, the current project is too small and, if realized in this form, could deprive Albania of the historic opportunity to be a competitive logistics center in the region.
The letter is addressed to Prime Minister Edi Rama, Minister of Infrastructure and Energy Enea Karakaçi, Minister of Defense Ermal Nufi, as well as the executive director of the Durrës Port Authority, Liburn Aliu.
According to Van Cleeve, Albania has a historic opportunity to reshape the logistical geometry of the Balkans and shift the region's economic gravity through the construction of a major infrastructure anchored in Porto Romano.
He emphasizes that infrastructure is engineering, while logistical dominance is a matter of governance and leadership. In this sense, the decision for Porto Romano is not simply a construction project, but a strategic choice that will determine Albania's geopolitical and economic position in Southeast Europe for decades to come.
“Ports are built once in a century, and strategic mistakes made at ports can determine the fate of a nation for a century,” he writes.
According to him, the current Porto Romano project is very limited in scale. It only envisages 400 meters of pier wall and about 38 hectares of port area.
Van Cleeve emphasizes that ports today compete on scale and that a port that can in practice only accommodate one large ship cannot compete with the large ports of the region, such as Piraeus or Thessaloniki.
He warns that if Porto Romano is built on this limited scale, then Corridor 8 will fail structurally and the main flows of goods in Southeast Europe will continue to be controlled by Greek ports, leaving Albania outside the main Mediterranean logistics system for decades to come.
According to him, transport corridors follow ports, not the other way around. A small port, he points out, cannot generate the volumes of goods needed to support a large east-west logistics corridor like Corridor 8.
Van Cleeve also emphasizes the geopolitical dimension of the project. He recalls that due to its position between the Adriatic and the Black Sea, Corridor 8 has been a strategic objective for more than three decades.
However, he warns that in regions where there is geopolitical competition, infrastructure is never neutral. According to him, some actors benefit from maintaining the current north-south transport flows, concentrated around other Mediterranean ports.
In this context, he argues that Porto Romano could become the central logistics platform of Southeast Europe if designed on a strategic scale.
According to him, such a port should aim for a water depth of 18 meters, a capacity of over 2 million TEU for containers, large logistics areas and free trade zones, Ro-Ro and energy terminals - including LNG from the US - as well as maritime infrastructure that could also be used for NATO strategic purposes.
Such a Porto Romano, he emphasizes, would place Albania at the center of regional supply chains and strengthen NATO's strategic mobility in Southeast Europe.
At the end of the letter, Van Cleeve asks a question that he believes sums up the essence of the strategic decision:
“Will Albania depend on Piraeus and Thessaloniki – or will the Balkans depend on Porto Romano?”
He requests that the tender scheduled for March 9 be postponed and the project be revised in line with the latest NATO requirements and the development of Corridor 8.
According to him, there is a possibility that a larger EPC+F project for Porto Romano will be developed within this year, co-financed by partners from the United States and Italy and carried out by strategic companies from the US, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.
He adds that large American engineering companies can assist in reviewing the design of the port, as well as the road and rail infrastructure connected to Corridor 8, built according to NATO standards and in full coordination with the alliance.
