Balkans

Smugglers are hiring young men from Albanian border villages to take cannabis in backpacks into Greece, trying to avoid beefed-up patrols since the arrival of officers from the EU’s border agency. On April 20, the European Union’s border agency, Frontex, posted a photo on its Facebook page of three black …

The UN court will deliver Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic’s final verdict next week, but dozens of his associates who have been accused or convicted of Bosnian war crimes now live in Serbia with little fear of prosecution. The death of Milorad Pelemis, wartime commander of the Bosnian Serb …

The two countries have decided not to join the new European Public Prosecutor’s Office, whose first cases will include the Czech prime minister’s conflict of interest over EU subsidies.Hungary and Poland, perhaps not surprisingly, announced this week they would not participate in the newly established EU prosecutor’s office, which will …

Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic would do well to learn from the mistake made by Montenegro’s Milo Djukanovic. His quest for absolute power may come back to haunt him.Once again, the Serbian Orthodox Church, SOC, has been the stage of a ruthless political game by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to bring the …

Decades on from the end of the Bosnian war, an amoral managerial approach aimed at pacification remains the baseline in international dealings with the country. On 14 February 1992, Ambassador José Cutileiro chaired a meeting between delegations of six, predominantly non-nationalist, Bosnian opposition parties, all represented in the republic’s parliament …

It’s a cold morning in Rance, a mountainous village east of Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, and Isak Asllani is preparing to pay tribute at a memorial for his fallen family and friends. It is a painful ritual he carries out every Feb. 17 to mark the anniversary of Kosovo’s declaration of …

A display of hubris by Slovakian Prime Minister Igor Matovic over a controversial Russian coronavirus vaccine has cost him his job and shaken a reformist government in which many Slovaks had invested so much hope. On April 1, Matovic resigned, just over a year after coming to power following an …

As a European Union and NATO member that borders Turkey, hugs the Black Sea coast and maintains cordial relations with Russia, Bulgaria is a strategically significant country. Yet in recent years, it has rarely made international news—except for the occasional domestic clash over Russian influence and periodic mass protests over …

A Bulgarian prosecutor provided evidence to the court handling Hezbollah’s involvement in the Burgas bus bombing. A Bulgarian prosecutor provided detailed evidence to the Bulgarian court handling Hezbollah’s involvement in the 2012 Burgas bus bombing which killed five Israelis and their Bulgarian-Muslim bus driver, but the court refused to accept …

Germany’s unilateral push to appoint a new High Representative in Bosnia has angered Russia, with direct ramifications for the EU’s military mission and the stability of the country. In the end, Germany got their man. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Peace Implementation Council, PIC, has approved the nomination of German parliamentarian Christian …