Balkan News

Romania's government on Wednesday said it was considering whether to sue the European Commission over what it called a highly unjust report on the country's justice affairs – which the PM said had 'outraged' her.

After ex-PM Nikola Gruevski fled the country to avoid serving his jail sentence, his former colleagues in government have rounded on him for evading justice and putting their own trials at risk.

The Bosnian state court said it will grant early release to Zeljko Mejakic, the highest-ranking official at the notorious Omarska detention camp, who was sentenced to 21 years in prison for crimes against humanity.

The ban on Kosovo athletes flying the flag at the World Karate Championship in Spain has highlighted the disadvantages that its sporting professionals still face, the head of the Kosovo Olympic Committee has told BIRN.

Bosnia’s defence minister said she hopes NATO foreign ministers will recommend the activation of the country’s Membership Action Plan, although the main requirement for this to happen has not yet been fulfilled.

It’s not love of communism but love of Russia – and lack of a national identity – that keep Soviet symbols flying in the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria.

An online petition was launched in Moldova calling on the government to install surveillance systems in kindergartens to protect children against potential abuse after videos of serveral incidents were posted online.

The Bosnian Defence Ministry lost the case because it failed to deliver weapons and ammunition ordered by Croatian company Scout, which is now vowing legal action to enforce payment.

Notorious Albanian 'gangster' Emiljano Shullazi was sentenced on Tuesday to 14 years in prison for extortion and running a criminal organisation in a high-profile trial in Tirana.

Former Yugoslav State Security Service officials Josip Perkovic and Zdravko Mustac have filed a suit against Germany at the European Court of Human Rights, alleging the trial that saw them convicted of murder was unfair.

A court in Belgrade sentenced a former Bosnian Serb soldier to seven years in prison for the murder of a Bosniak civilian in the Kljuc area during the Bosnian war in 1992.

A message on the Facebook page of former Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, the subject of a nationwide police manhunt for dodging a jail sentence, said he is in Budapest, seeking political asylum.

The European Parliament and European Commission criticised Romania's backtracking on corruption and the rule of law, less than two months before the country takes over the EU Council presidency.

As police stepped up a nationwide search for former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski after he did not turn up to serve his jail sentence, many have been speculating that he might have fled the country.

Armistice Day 2018 marks 100 years since the end of World War I – Belgrade has several poignant memorials to those who lost their lives.

A new wave of streets protests in Bulgaria – over rising fuel prices and new automobile regulations – contains echoes of the mass discontent of 2013 that brought down the then government.

Bulgaria is the latest EU-member state to clarify that it will be not back the UN pact on migration, due to be signed next month in Marrakech, claiming it puts the national interest at risk.  

A Macedonian court on Monday issued an arrest warrant for former prime minister Nikola Gruevski after he failed to report to jail to serve his two-year jail sentence for the illicit purchase of a luxury Mercedes.

In his first testimony in court, the former secret police employee who exposed the illegal wiretapping scandal in Macedonia revealed how he helped to extract incriminating evidence from the secret police computers.

Kosovo President Hashim Thaci says the Russian leader told him in Paris that Moscow will support any peaceful agreement reached between Kosovo and Serbia.