Balkans Occidentaux

Le DJ franco-algérien DJ Snake a créé la surprise samedi en offrant un concert improvisé au cœur d’Alger. L’événement s’est tenu gratuitement sur la place de la Grande Poste, devant des milliers d'Algérois venus profiter de l'artiste international qui avait déjà promis de jouer dans la capitale algérienne.

Retour sur les temps forts de l'actualité de la semaine : l'épidémie d'Ebola sévit en RD Congo, Vladimir Poutine et Xi Jinping se sont rencontrés à Pékin, l'image insolite de l'actrice Arisa Sasaki habillée en Sirène au festival de Cannes, ou encore l'humiliation des militants de la "Flottille pour Gaza" par le ministre israélien de la Sécurité nationale.

Au Sénégal, la rupture entre le président Bassirou Diomaye Faye et son Premier ministre Ousmane Sonko est scellée et plonge le Sénégal dans une nouvelle phase d'incertitude politique. Cette fracture au sommet de l'État intervient dans un contexte déjà fragile au plan politique et économique, faisant craindre des répercussions sur la stabilité institutionnelle du pays. À Dakar, les réactions sont contrastées.

L'épidémie d'Ebola ne cesse de prendre de l'ampleur : déjà 177 morts selon l'OMS et 750 cas probables. C'est la 17e flambée du virus en République démocratique du Congo (RD Congo), principal pays concerné. Alors qu'aucun vaccin ou traitement contre la souche Bundibugyo du virus n'existe, le respect des mesures barrières et la détection rapide des cas est crucial, comme l'explique l'épidémiologiste Jean Kaseya, directeur général de l'Africa CDC, le centre africain de contrôle et de prévention des maladies.

À quelques jours de la grande fête musulmane de l'Aïd al-Adha, le roi Mohammed VI a gracié samedi pour "des considérations humaines" les supporters sénégalais emprisonnés au Maroc après les violences survenues à Rabat lors de la finale de la CAN 2025.

La rupture entre le président Bassirou Diomaye Faye et son Premier ministre Ousmane Sonko plonge le Sénégal dans une nouvelle phase d’incertitude politique. Cette fracture au sommet de l’État intervient dans un contexte déjà fragile, faisant craindre des répercussions sur la stabilité institutionnelle et les réformes en cours.

Des dizaines de milliers de personnes ont investi samedi le centre de Belgrade. Face au pouvoir d'Aleksandar Vučić, la contestation affiche sa force, mais un mémorandum controversé sur le Kosovo révèle les fractures idéologiques qui traversent le mouvement.

- Articles / Courrier des Balkans, Vucic, Serbie, Politique

- Agenda / France - Régions

Vendredi 22 mai - 18h
Rencontre en partenariat avec l'Académie d'Alsace des sciences, lettres et arts.
L'écrivain Velibor Čolić, né en Bosnie en 1964, s'est réfugié en France en 1992, au début de la guerre en ex-Yougoslavie. Il a résidé plusieurs années à Strasbourg et vit aujourd'hui à Bruxelles. Ecrits et publiés en exil, ses premiers ouvrages (nouvelles et romans) ont été traduits du bosniaque vers le français, puis il s'est mis à écrire en français, devenant en quelque sorte son (…)

- Agenda / Bosnie-Herzégovine, France - Régions

Vendredi 22 mai - 18h
Rencontre en partenariat avec l'Académie d'Alsace des sciences, lettres et arts.
L'écrivain Velibor Čolić, né en Bosnie en 1964, s'est réfugié en France en 1992, au début de la guerre en ex-Yougoslavie. Il a résidé plusieurs années à Strasbourg et vit aujourd'hui à Bruxelles. Ecrits et publiés en exil, ses premiers ouvrages (nouvelles et romans) ont été traduits du bosniaque vers le français, puis il s'est mis à écrire en français, devenant en quelque sorte son (…)

- Agenda / Bosnie-Herzégovine, France - Régions

L'Institut culturel bulgare à le plaisir d'accueillir pour la première fois l'exposition personnelle de l'artiste contemporain Rossen Markovski, intitulée Le Récit des Poissons, du 26 mars au 22 mai 2026.
L'exposition réunit 25 toiles ainsi que quelques sculptures — « empreintes de rencontres et d'amour » et inspirées par sa vie « à la lisière de la mer », selon les mots de l'artiste. Celui-ci peint de manière spontanée et expressive ; ses tableaux sont à la fois puissants et délicats, (…)

- Agenda / Bulgarie, Région parisienne

International donors commit substantial resources to GovTech projects (the application of information and communication technologies to government functions). World Bank GovTech investments alone have exceeded $118 billion over the last three decades. Donor strategy documents consistently frame digital transformation not only as a vehicle for improved effectiveness but also for strengthening democracy.
Autocrats are equally invested in these tools. Globally, at least 88 authoritarian regimes currently operate GovTech projects, and electoral autocracies receive the largest share of GovTech aid (48.6 per cent of commitments). Beyond well-known surveillance applications, autocracies deploy GovTech for service delivery, grievance redress and even citizen engagement. These platforms are deployed to project an image of responsiveness and legitimacy. Our experimental evidence from Turkey shows how efficiency-enhancing GovTech tools, when paired with sophisticated regime communication, can durably entrench autocratic rule. We designed a survey experiment focused on CIMER, Turkey’s widely used citizen petition platform, to examine how citizens respond to the government propaganda surrounding it. The results show that the government’s framing of CIMER as an effective tool that “gets things done” significantly increased trust in authoritarian institutions, even among regime opponents. The effect extended beyond attitudes to behaviour: Asked to allocate a hypothetical donation of money among state institutions, independent non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or themselves, anti-government respondents exposed to messages on the platform were significantly more likely to give the money to state institutions. Our recommendations are as follows:
• Donors must take the second-order effects of GovTech initiatives seriously and develop mechanisms to carefully evaluate the risks of unintended consequences. In many cases, support for GovTech projects is overly optimistic regarding their effects on political openness. Adopting a more context-sensitive and realistic approach demands detailed political economy assessments before supporting GovTech projects and developing monitoring metrics that capture potential regime-legitimation effects.
• Donors need to build stronger safety guardrails into these projects. Depending on the political economy assessments, such measures could include the institutional involvement of international organisations or, if feasible, local NGOs (as conditionality) in platform oversight, mandatory independent audits and open data standards by design, among others.
• Finally, donors need to consider actively participating in public communication on these platforms, with visible donor branding, to counter government-controlled propaganda, claim credit for service delivery and strengthen trust in donor countries and organisations.

International donors commit substantial resources to GovTech projects (the application of information and communication technologies to government functions). World Bank GovTech investments alone have exceeded $118 billion over the last three decades. Donor strategy documents consistently frame digital transformation not only as a vehicle for improved effectiveness but also for strengthening democracy.
Autocrats are equally invested in these tools. Globally, at least 88 authoritarian regimes currently operate GovTech projects, and electoral autocracies receive the largest share of GovTech aid (48.6 per cent of commitments). Beyond well-known surveillance applications, autocracies deploy GovTech for service delivery, grievance redress and even citizen engagement. These platforms are deployed to project an image of responsiveness and legitimacy. Our experimental evidence from Turkey shows how efficiency-enhancing GovTech tools, when paired with sophisticated regime communication, can durably entrench autocratic rule. We designed a survey experiment focused on CIMER, Turkey’s widely used citizen petition platform, to examine how citizens respond to the government propaganda surrounding it. The results show that the government’s framing of CIMER as an effective tool that “gets things done” significantly increased trust in authoritarian institutions, even among regime opponents. The effect extended beyond attitudes to behaviour: Asked to allocate a hypothetical donation of money among state institutions, independent non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or themselves, anti-government respondents exposed to messages on the platform were significantly more likely to give the money to state institutions. Our recommendations are as follows:
• Donors must take the second-order effects of GovTech initiatives seriously and develop mechanisms to carefully evaluate the risks of unintended consequences. In many cases, support for GovTech projects is overly optimistic regarding their effects on political openness. Adopting a more context-sensitive and realistic approach demands detailed political economy assessments before supporting GovTech projects and developing monitoring metrics that capture potential regime-legitimation effects.
• Donors need to build stronger safety guardrails into these projects. Depending on the political economy assessments, such measures could include the institutional involvement of international organisations or, if feasible, local NGOs (as conditionality) in platform oversight, mandatory independent audits and open data standards by design, among others.
• Finally, donors need to consider actively participating in public communication on these platforms, with visible donor branding, to counter government-controlled propaganda, claim credit for service delivery and strengthen trust in donor countries and organisations.

Policy coherence is widely regarded as essential for achieving sustainable development, climate targets, and reducing inequality, as reflected in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Recent scholarship has moved beyond technocratic approaches, drawing on comparative politics, particularly the “3 I's” of ideas, interests, and institutions, to highlight the inherently political nature of coherence. Yet even these studies often treat coherence as binary, easily observable, and intrinsically beneficial. Building on a coherence literature focused on discourses and frames, this paper challenges these assumptions by examining how policy (in)coherence is constructed and contested. Focusing on policy implementation in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's coal heartland, we analyse two cases before and during the 2022 energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine: the commissioning of the Datteln IV hard coal plant in 2020, and the clearance of the village of Lützerath for mining in 2023. Drawing on 28 semi-structured interviews with German energy, climate, and environmental experts, alongside policy and media analysis, we find that (in)coherence is greatly constructed and contested under shifting political and economic pressures, instrumentalised and legitimisatised by different actors to advance their interests, and profoundly shaped by temporal dynamics. Given recent findings that challenge the 2030 Agenda's assumption that policy coherence reduces inequalities, we also explore how (in)coherence is perceived to shape multidimensional inequality in the Energiewende more broadly. Here, we find that (in)coherence is most prominently perceived to cause delays in climate mitigation, disproportionately affecting youth, low-income households, migrants, and activists. In this context, (in)coherence is not merely technical, political nor constructed, but fundamentally a matter of justice, shifting the analytical focus from whether policies and their implementation are coherent to how, and for whom, coherence matters.

Policy coherence is widely regarded as essential for achieving sustainable development, climate targets, and reducing inequality, as reflected in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Recent scholarship has moved beyond technocratic approaches, drawing on comparative politics, particularly the “3 I's” of ideas, interests, and institutions, to highlight the inherently political nature of coherence. Yet even these studies often treat coherence as binary, easily observable, and intrinsically beneficial. Building on a coherence literature focused on discourses and frames, this paper challenges these assumptions by examining how policy (in)coherence is constructed and contested. Focusing on policy implementation in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's coal heartland, we analyse two cases before and during the 2022 energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine: the commissioning of the Datteln IV hard coal plant in 2020, and the clearance of the village of Lützerath for mining in 2023. Drawing on 28 semi-structured interviews with German energy, climate, and environmental experts, alongside policy and media analysis, we find that (in)coherence is greatly constructed and contested under shifting political and economic pressures, instrumentalised and legitimisatised by different actors to advance their interests, and profoundly shaped by temporal dynamics. Given recent findings that challenge the 2030 Agenda's assumption that policy coherence reduces inequalities, we also explore how (in)coherence is perceived to shape multidimensional inequality in the Energiewende more broadly. Here, we find that (in)coherence is most prominently perceived to cause delays in climate mitigation, disproportionately affecting youth, low-income households, migrants, and activists. In this context, (in)coherence is not merely technical, political nor constructed, but fundamentally a matter of justice, shifting the analytical focus from whether policies and their implementation are coherent to how, and for whom, coherence matters.

Sanctions américaines, intérêts russes et recomposition politique en Hongrie : l'avenir du pétrolier serbe NIS se joue ces jours-ci dans un contexte géopolitique plus incertain que jamais.

- Articles / Courrier des Balkans, Énergie Balkans, Serbie, Economie

« Neka bude što biti ne može, Qu'advienne ce qui ne pouvait advenir » : c'est en citant le poète Njegoš que le prince Nikola Petrović-Njegoš revient sur les vingt années écoulées depuis la restauration de l'indépendance du Monténégro, et appelle ses compatriotes à se tourner vers les défis de l'avenir.

- Libres opinions. L'espace de débat du Courrier des Balkans / Monténégro, Indépendance du Monténégro 2006

Thursday 21 May

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

En 2006, nombreux étaient ceux qui imaginaient la Serbie rejoindre l'Union européenne avant le Monténégro. Deux décennies plus tard, Podgorica approche de l'objectif, tandis que Belgrade accumule blocages politiques, tensions géopolitiques et critiques sur l'état de droit.

- Articles / Courrier des Balkans, Une - Diaporama, Monténégro UE, Indépendance du Monténégro 2006, Monténégro, Serbie, Questions européennes, Relations régionales

En 2006, nombreux étaient ceux qui imaginaient la Serbie rejoindre l'Union européenne avant le Monténégro. Deux décennies plus tard, Podgorica approche de l'objectif, tandis que Belgrade accumule blocages politiques, tensions géopolitiques et critiques sur l'état de droit.

- Articles / Courrier des Balkans, Une - Diaporama, Monténégro UE, Indépendance du Monténégro 2006, Monténégro, Serbie, Questions européennes, Relations régionales