Prishtina 2030 at Balkan Summit 2026: financing the Games and what they leave behind
More than 20 venues, an athlete village and a tourism offer built to outlast the Mediterranean Games.
Prishtina will host the Mediterranean Games in 2030. On Monday 19 October, two sessions looked at what it will take to build for them, and what the city and the region keep afterwards.
In the Strauss Hall, Thematic Panel 3, “Games as a Growth Engine: Financing 20+ Venues & a Lasting Legacy”, covered stadiums, aquatics centres, the athlete village and medical tourism. On the panel were Alexandre Laure, Senior Private Sector Specialist in the World Bank's Finance, Competitiveness & Innovation Global Practice; Rob Clarke, Founder and Director of RC Advisory Group; and Mahmut Topal, Business Development Manager at Integral Group, the Turkish sports-facility builder.
The plenary that followed in the Beethoven Hall, Session 4, “Destination Balkans: Tourism, Heritage & Hospitality Built to Last”, brought the public side of the project to the stage. The panel was Përparim Rama, Mayor of Prishtina; Drilon Brahimi, Chief of Staff to the Minister of Youth and Sports and Coordinator of the Mediterranean Games Prishtina 2030; and Ismet Krasniqi, President of the Kosovo Olympic Committee.
Both sessions were moderated by Besim Aliti, General Secretary of the Kosovo Olympic Committee, who leads stakeholder coordination for the Games.
The question running through both was the one every host city faces: venues are built for a fortnight but have to pay their way for decades. That puts tourism, hospitality and health services in the same conversation as construction, and it is why the Games sat in the summit's programme as an investment case, not a sporting one.
Matchmaking for the Games, sports infrastructure, tourism and hospitality ran at 16:00 in the Meeting & Networking Hall.
Balkan Summit 2026 took place in Prishtina from 18 to 21 October 2026, at the Emerald Hotel.