The Heritage Foundation helped to “design” the manifesto of candidate Sali Berisha, who is accused of corruption.

SAM BRIGHT / DESMOG

The Heritage Foundation, the U.S. group that produced a key blueprint for Donald Trump’s second term as president, is trying to shape the upcoming Albanian election, DeSmog reports.

The opposition candidate Sali Berisha of the Democratic Party has openly boasted of the group’s involvement in his campaign, posting pictures online of his meetings with Heritage Foundation executives and claiming that it has helped to “design” his policy platform.

Berisha, who previously served as the country’s president from 1992 to 1997 and its prime minister from 2005 to 2013, is hoping to return to power after the May 11 vote.

The Democratic Party chair, who spent the majority of 2023 under house arrest on corruption charges, is running on a conservative, anti-tax platform that echoes several of Trump’s key talking points — including the pledge to “make Albania great again.” The Democratic Party is a right-wing institution with no links to the U.S. party of the same name.

The Heritage Foundation has been expanding its European footprint following Trump’s victory in November. On March 11, the U.S. think tank gathered hardline conservative groups to hear how the current structures of the EU could be dismantled.

“With Trump, the Heritage Foundation has proven to be highly capable of setting governments on course to trample on migrants, the rule of law and social rights,” said Kenneth Haar, a researcher and campaigner at the transparency watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory. “To see them play this role in Albania certainly opens a new chapter. Which European country will be next, one might ask?”

The Heritage Foundation led the way in creating Project 2025, the 922-page guide to radically retrenching the U.S. government. The blueprint urged Trump to “dismantle the administrative state,” reverse policies on climate action, slash restrictions on fossil fuel extraction, scrap state investment in renewable energy and gut the Environmental Protection Agency.

Project 2025 also proposed limiting reproductive rights, including further restricting access to abortions as well as access to contraceptives.

Also consulting with the Berisha campaign is the German research group Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), which is funded by the German state and is affiliated with the country’s ruling center-right party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

In February, Berisha revealed his economic program with “the support” of KAS and, a month later, claimed in a speech that his platform “bears the seal of the Adenauer Stiftung.”

“It is quite something to see the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung alongside the Heritage Foundation,” said Haar. “To see them side by side, playing a seemingly big role in determining the future of Albanian politics, is alarming. This coalition raises new questions about the members of Trump’s European network.”

The Heritage Foundation and KAS are not the only foreign operatives tied to the campaign. Chris LaCivita, Trump’s former campaign chief, is now orchestrating Berisha’s operation.

“We are here today because we want to help elect a prime minister who is a true friend of the United States and who will successfully work with President Trump”,

… LaCivita told a press conference in February as he was presented by Berisha.

Since his re-election, Trump has repeatedly criticized the EU for its alleged opposition to U.S. trade interests. In March, he called the EU “one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the world.” Albania is currently applying for EU membership.

‘Continued support and assistance’

Berisha has been touting the role of the Heritage Foundation and KAS in his campaign for several months.

On Feb. 16, Berisha’s Democratic Party presented its election policies to a “panel of experts” featuring a video message from Thomas Kunze, the director of KAS’s Albania office. According to the KAS website, Kunze used the opportunity to reiterate “the continued support and assistance of the KAS to the Democratic Party over the years.”

The event was also attended by Steven Bucci of the Heritage Foundation, who was pictured on Berisha’s Facebook page at the Democratic Party’s headquarters the day before.

In the post, Berisha acknowledged the Heritage Foundation’s role in drafting Trump’s agenda and thanked the group for its help in “rebuilding the Albanian right.”

“The American Heritage Foundation continues to provide its expertise with recommendations for the Democratic Party of Albania’s electoral program and is a bridge worthy of communication with the administration of President Donald Trump and the Congress of the United States of America,”

he added.

This bridge between Trump and Berisha is buttressed by LaCivita, the political strategist who helped to run Trump’s 2024 campaign.

During the Albanian campaign, LaCivita and Berisha have been repeating some of the key grievances of Trump’s supporters.

“The current prime minister [Edi Rama] is nothing more than a puppet of George Soros,” LaCivita said, when he was announced as Berisha’s campaign adviser. “You cannot be a puppet of George Soros and a friend of United States. It is just not possible.”

Berisha alleges that he has been targeted by a campaign led by Joe Biden’s former administration and the financier Soros — a prominent Hungarian American philanthropist who has donated heavily to liberal causes.

“Soros and his puppets have done everything to destroy Albania’s conservative opposition,” Berisha has claimed — echoing a prominent conspiracy theory about Soros manipulating global politics.

Despite receiving the backing of the Heritage Foundation, KAS and LaCivita, the polls suggest that Berisha is unlikely to stage another political comeback as he continues to trail Rama’s Socialist Party.

However, the country has a history of political corruption, and the election may prove to be volatile.

Project Europe.

The Heritage Foundation appears to have been increasingly turning its attention to Europe following Trump’s victory in November.

Speaking at a side event during the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in London on Feb. 17, Heritage president Kevin Roberts spoke about its new European focus — calling for closer collaboration between national-conservative politicians across the Western world.

Roberts claimed that the Heritage Foundation would support “our friends from Europe” to “reclaim” their institutions, suggesting that supranational organizations like the EU, United Nations and World Health Organization “rob us of our individual sovereignty.”

“This is all about reclaiming sovereignty, reclaiming the spirit, the sovereignty of each of our nation states,” he said. “And so I can speak for a lot of Americans here and certainly all of us from the Heritage Foundation: … We’ve drawn a line in the sand and we’re ready to lead the world again.”

A month after the ARC conference, the Heritage Foundation held a summit in Washington, D.C., featuring the Hungarian and Polish lobby groups MCC and Ordo Iuris to discuss how to overhaul the current structures of the EU.

As revealed by DeSmog, the Heritage Foundation has also been holding private meetings with European politicians in recent months, including those close to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose government funds MCC.

The Heritage Foundation “seeks to steer America towards autocracy under Trump’s rule,” Martin Schirdewan, a member of European Parliament and the co-chair of The Left group, previously told DeSmog.

“Since his election, we have seen that they intend to follow through on those plans to the very end. We now know that the Heritage Foundation and their allies in Europe want to replicate that model here. We must protect our services, rights and liberties from these oligarchs at all costs.”

The Heritage Foundation’s connection in Albania to KAS has been seen by some observers as worrying and unexpected.

KAS is affiliated with the CDU, which is set to form a government in Germany under the leadership of Friedrich Merz following February’s federal election.

Both the CDU and KAS are pro-EU, while Merz has claimed that the U.S. “is no longer the America we used to know” following Trump’s return to the White House and his enaction of Project 2025.

Albania is in the process of joining the EU, and Berisha said in a speech on March 18 that he was “fully committed” to Albania’s integration.

KAS told DeSmog that its work in Albania helps to promote the country’s accession to the EU and the Democratic Party’s “internal democracy,” and that its co-operation “does not include any institutional financing.”

By contrast, LaCivita called Europeans “stupid” in a Politico podcast in March.

“There is no co-operation between the KAS and the Heritage Foundation in Albania,” KAS added. The Democratic Party “has had its own links with the Heritage Foundation for some time. KAS was not involved in initiating these links.”

However, like the Heritage Foundation, KAS is active abroad. It claims to have a presence in over 100 countries, collaborating with local partners.

MCC — which is largely funded through Hungary’s state oil company — is one of these partners, while the German think tank also gave around €250,000 ($283,000) to the political foundation of Orbán’s party Fidesz between 2004 and 2012.

KAS stated that its ties to MCC form part of its work “examining authoritarian regimes,” and that “MCC has a particularly wide reach” among young people — a valuable “target group” for KAS.

The Heritage Foundation and the Democratic Party were approached for comment.

Berisha’s Background.

In his March 18 speech, Berisha also expressed “special gratitude” to “my friends from the CDU, Adenauer Stiftung and Heritage Foundation, who supported us in our most difficult days.”

These “difficult days” have included corruption allegations directed at Berisha, as well as alleged links to organized crime. He denies all wrongdoing.

The Democratic Party candidate, who is banned from traveling to the U.K., allegedly approved a special law while in office from 2005 to 2013 that helped his son-in-law to earn millions from a construction development.

Berisha and his U.S. allies claim these charges were cooked up by the Biden administration in concert with Soros — suggesting that Berisha’s opponents were funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which has recently been gutted by Trump’s “government efficiency” chief Elon Musk.

In March, Berisha said that Trump was one of the politicians who inspired him — in particular Trump’s belief that “the most dangerous enemy is the internal enemy.”

Berisha’s election platform has also reflected Trump’s. He has proposed introducing a law recognizing only two genders, mirroring the new U.S. president’s edict. He has also campaigned on a “made in Albania” farming policy, echoing Trump’s concern over foreign imports.

Berisha also reportedly keeps a red “Make America Great Again” cap behind his desk.

First published on Truthdig.com.

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