Balkans

Kosovo is trying to reintegrate returnees from the Islamic State. But its strategy on religious extremism must evolve too, experts say. In the backyard of a house in the southern Kosovo city of Prizren, a four-year-old girl sits with a smartphone listening to Ilahi, a form of Islamic song. The …

We ought not to consider The Balkans a region completely immune from potential crises and conflicts. The symptoms of this assumption are clearly visible in the current political situation in Bosnia, which is risking to enter into a new conflict with unforeseeable consequences, even 25 years after the Dayton Peace …

Political veteran Sali Berisha will bid to take back control of the opposition Democrats on Saturday, but in doing so he risks splitting the party in two.Tirana’s 22,500-seat ‘Air Albania’ stadium will host a grudge match on Saturday, but there won’t be a football in sight. Instead, a 77-year-old former …

Bulgarian politics enter a new phase with ‘We Continue the Change’ heading a coalition under Kiril Petkov as Prime Minister – but the political diversity of the new cabinet could be a major problem.The formation of a new government in Bulgaria in early December understandably brought a new sense of …

Malgré des positions différentes entre Macron et Orban, un rapprochement est en train de s’opérer. Pour s’émanciper de l’Allemagne ? Le président Emmanuel Macron a rencontré le Premier ministre hongrois Viktor Orban. Ce dernier assure actuellement la présidence tournante du groupe de Visegrad (Pologne, République tchèque, Slovaquie et Hongrie) et a …

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on Tuesday said a solution to the dispute in ethnically divided Cyprus must follow the UN-endorsed road map for reunification of the island in a federal framework, and be based on international law rather than promoting “aggressive activities or expansionist tendencies.” His remarks, seen as …

Bosnische Serben treiben die Abspaltung von der Zentralregierung voran. Noch bleiben sechs Monate bis zu ersten konkreten Maßnahmen. Milorad Dodik hat seinen Drohungen Taten folgen lassen. Mit den Beschlüssen der Mehrheit des Parlamentes der serbischen Teilrepublik hat er den gemeinsamen Staat Bosnien und Herzegowina ernsthaft infrage gestellt, auch wenn die …

Bosna-Hersek Üçlü Başkanlık Konseyi’nin “Kendimi Bosna-Hersek Devlet Başkanı gibi hissetmiyorum, çünkü bence böyle bir devlet yok” diyen Sırp üyesi Milorad Dodik, geçen Ekim ayında, Sırp Cumhuriyeti entitesinin Bosna-Hersek vergi ve yargı sisteminden çıkması ve kendi ordusunu kurması için entite meclisine teklif götüreceğini söylemişti. Dodik dediğini yaptı ve Sırp Cumhuriyeti Meclisi …

Once again, Bosnia’s Bosnjak leadership is attempting to create the multicultural, civic, unified state Washington has promised and failed to enable. It is worth remembering that “Bosnjak,” an Ottoman-era term dusted off in the 1990s, originally was meant to be the civic signifier of every citizen in the country, not …

Deputy Prime Minister Besnik Bislimi tells BIRN that Serbia is still boosting Belgrade-run structures in Kosovo – and the EU-led dialogue won’t make progress until they are dissolved. As the European Union-facilitated dialogue on normalisation of relations between Serbia and Kosovo languishes in a stalemate, Kosovo’s Deputy Prime Minister, Besnik …