Balkans

The collapse in the hitherto close Polish-Hungarian relations has been collateral damage of Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Warsaw expects serious gestures from Budapest to repair ties, but Orban hopes the estrangement is just a temporary blip. For years, Russia has been the elephant in the room during talks between Poland …

The case of a convicted rapist who fled Bosnia and Herzegovina and evaded a jail sentence highlights yet again the problem of war crimes convicts and defendants dodging justice by escaping to countries that will not extradite them. After being convicted, Ilija Juric never showed up to serve his sentence …

The anti-Albanian campaigns in the British media today are all too reminiscent of the targeting of Albanians in Italy and Greece 30 years ago – and need to be fought, not indulged.The recent anti-Albanian campaign in the UK has pushed Albanian politicians and intellectuals to take a stand in defence …

The resignations of four State Department officials protesting US inaction on the Bosnian war helped turn the tide of US opinion – but Bosnia has never recognised or rewarded their principled action.In late August 1992, George Kenney resigned as acting head of the Yugoslavia desk at the US State Department. …

Restrictions on media freedom, unpunished violations by officials and alleged violence by police continued to be problems in south-east European countries in 2020, said a new US State Department report. The US State Department’s 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which was published on Tuesday, warned that countries in …

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić also spoke about the political situation and the announced elections in four municipalities in the north of Kosovo at a meeting with Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija in Raška. He said that the elections were scheduled even though Belgrade requested that the ZSO be formed first …

By making an exception to the moratorium on military exercises, and in the midst of the Ukrainian war, the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, sent an important message of alliance to the West, and especially to America, according to Boško Jakšić, a foreign policy analyst. Commenting on the decision of …

A new film looks at the harm done by the practice in Italy of ‘informal readmissions’ by which refugees and migrants were swiftly sent back over the border with Slovenia in 2020. Ignoring a court ruling that suspended the practice, Italy’s new government says it will be revived.

Ahead of the war crimes trial of ex-President Hashim Thaci and three other former guerrilla leaders, there is widespread distrust of the Hague-based Kosovo Specialist Chambers, which many Kosovo Albanians see as biased. Sejdi Zymeri’s house in the village of Likovc/Likovac is close to where the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA …

The President of the People’s Party, Vuk Jeremić, said that yesterday the implementation of the “French-German” plan for Kosovo and Metohija began with the signing of the Declaration on Enforced and Enforced Disappeared Persons during the 1999 War, which could cost Serbia hundreds of millions, if not billions of euros …