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The Serbian government has established a joint venture with a property development company owned by Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to develop a hotel complex in Belgrade, giving Serbia until next May to demolish the existing buildings, according to leaked documents.
An independent Serbian news magazine, Radar, published what appears to be a 2024 investment agreement giving Kushner’s firm, Atlantic Incubation Partners LLC, a 77.5% stake in the joint venture, and the Serbian government a 22.5% stake.
The joint company was formed to redevelop the site of the Serbian armed forces headquarters in Belgrade, which was bombed by Nato in 1999, a plan which provoked protests in the city centre.
The Serbian government has not disputed the authenticity of the published documents. While the agreement dates back to February 2024, it was kept secret and only became a flashpoint last week, after Serbia’s national assembly passed a special law to fast track development of the site as a “project of importance for the Republic of Serbia”.
The new law allows the government to sidestep regulatory controls which had halted progress on the scheme in May, pending an investigation into whether documentation removing the headquarters’ protected cultural status had been forged.
According to the agreement published by Radar, the Serbian state was obliged to remove the cultural designation of the complex and to complete demolition work of the existing buildings “in a manner that is satisfactory” to Kushner’s Atlantic Incubation company. If Serbia fails to meet a deadline of May next year to prepare the site for construction, the US company can terminate the contract “at its discretion” and demand a substantial sum in termination costs, according to the published document.
The deal provides for a free lease of the land for 99 years, with an option for the lease to be converted into full ownership.
The passing of the special law has given a fresh focus to year-long student-led demonstrations against corruption which were first triggered by the collapse of a railway station in the city of Novi Sad.
This week, demonstrators formed a human chain and painted a red line around the headquarters complex, in an effort to stall the sell off of the site for a reportedly planned hotel, apartments and museum complex.
Apart from its historic significance as the site of Nato bombing during the Kosovo war, it had protected status as the only work in Belgrade of Yugoslavia’s star modernist architect, Nikola Dobrović.
The passing of the special law accelerating the Kushner project has come at a time when the Serbian government of president Aleksandar Vučić is seeking to curry favour with the Trump administration after Washington imposed sanctions on the country’s national oil company NIS, due to the majority stake owned by Russia’s Gazprom and Gazprom Neft.
Those sanctions took effect last month, cutting off the flow of crude oil to the NIS refineries, which are predicted to run out of oil reserves by the end of this month.
Meanwhile, after a year of protests, the Belgrade government has threatened to shut down much of the country’s remaining independent media. On Wednesday, the information minister, Boris Bratina, threatened that the privately owned N1, Nova television channels and the US state-owned pro-democracy Radio Free Europe, which the Trump administration is trying to shut down.
Bratina said the stations “should not exist on the air on the territory of the state”, earning a rebuke from the European Commission. A commission spokesperson told N1 that independent media were “a key pillar of European democracy”.
The Serbian foreign ministry and Kushner’s umbrella investment company, Affinity Partners, were approached for comment on the agreement published by Radar.
