Balkaninsight.com

As political crises exploded across the Balkans, the region appeared to be sailing into dangerous waters over the last week. 

Croatia’s main governing party has fought off challenges to oust it from power after proving it still has a majority in the chamber.

Some of the clothing displayed at top fashion shows in Milan, London and Stockholm and worn by the likes of Madonna comes from Halida Susa’s humble home in a remote suburb of Sarajevo.

Kosovo opposition parties have initiated a new attempt to bring down Isa Mustafa’s coalition government by filing a no-confidence motion in parliament.

The recent violence in Macedonia, and the various crises in and between Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia, all suggest the Balkans may be sliding into turmoil and even conflict.

Excluded from the mainstream media, whose content is more heavily policed, the purveyors of extreme ideologies are spreading their messages of fear and hatred on social networks.

The regional television network N1 - known for its independent stance - says it fears Serbia's government is mulling banning its work in the country.

An association representing families of Serbs killed during the Kosovo war said a display of victims’ photographs outside the Serbian parliament needed protection, and called for a permanent memorial.

Boyko Borissov’s new cabinet contains several familiar faces - but some appointments are likely to stir more controversy.

Croatia's Finance Minister may have survived an opposition-led no-confidence vote  - but it remains unclear whether the main governing party, HDZ, still has a majority in the chamber.

Former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic, who is awaiting an appeal against his conviction for genocide and other wartime crimes, told a Serbian newspaper how he disguised himself while on the run.

As the once mighty nightly protests against ‘the regime’ shrink from thousands to about a hundred, the movement has also split along ideological lines.

Macedonia's parliament has informed the President of the new majority, led by the Social Democrats, to which the President has ten days to respond by awarding the mandate for forming a new government.

In a sudden U-turn, Romania's senate rejected an amendment offering an amnesty for a raft of graft-related offences passed by MPs on Wednesday, following renewed street protests.

After a no-confidence motion in the Finance Minister failed - and amid an HDZ initiative to remove him as chair of parliament - MOST leader Bozo Petrov has resigned from his position in parliament.

Despite mounting international pressure on Kosovo to ratify the controversial border agreement with Montenegro, the government has yet to set a date for a vote in parliament. 

With the IMF program effectively blocked, Bosnia’s governments will have to turn to more commercial loans to cover their budgets – which come at a worryingly high price.

A Belgrade court acquitted two former Bosnian Serb Army soldiers of killing a Bosniak civilian in December 1992 during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, reversing their previous convictions.

Romania’s Social Democrat government is coming under fire for borrowing large sums of money to cover the costs of what are deemed high-risk wage and fiscal policies.

Experts say parliament is unlikely to accept a Bosnian Croat proposal to change the election law to stop Bosniaks from outvoting Croats in the Federation entity, partly because it does not solve core problems.