Balkan News

Croatian European Parliament members wrote to EU officials raising concern about claims that the Croat member of the Bosnian presidency won his seat because of votes from Bosniaks rather than Croats.

The ruling majority has proposed what it calls 'national reconciliation', but the opposition is demanding a legal amnesty for those involved in last year’s bloody rampage in the Macedonian parliament.

Bulgarian police will commence full-time CCTV observation and regular patrols to protect a controversial Soviet monument in Sofia after a series of signs appeared on it in September and October. 

Labour unions in Kosovo support a proposal from ruling Democratic Party MP Nait Hasani to remove International Workers’ Day on May 1 from the country’s list of the official holidays.

A move by Romania’s Social Democrat-led government to dismiss the country’s Attorney General has raised more concerns about increasing political control over the judiciary.

While some countries and groups in the Balkans remain stuck in very familiar political and mental ruts, we also bring some interesting stories of attempts to think – and behave – outside the (mental) box. 

As the Albanian parliament voted for the closure of all betting shops, ruling Socialist Party MPs claimed they have received threatening text messages from people opposed to the shutdown.

London's High Court ruled on Thursday that the former owner of food giant Agrokor, Ivica Todoric, will be extradited to Croatia, where he is wanted for questioning over fraud allegations.

From 1999 to 2018, Kosovo courts heard 48 war crimes cases with a total of 111 defendants standing trial, said a new report published by the Humanitarian Law Centre.

Moldova accused the breakaway region of Transnistria of intentionally making it harder for pupils to study in Romanian-language schools by insisting that students are first registered on a separatist-approved list.

Anti-fascist campaigners criticised the Croatian government for effectively tolerating historical revisionism about World War II crimes and ignoring the rehabilitation of the country’s wartime Nazi-allied regime.

An EU diplomat said that hundreds of migrants and refugees, massed on Bosnia and Herzegovina’s border with Croatia for a second day running, must be told that illegal migration is unacceptable.

The judge reading the verdict convicting former premier Ivo Sanader of war profiteering said a mitigating factor was his wartime service - but ex-members of his unit alleged he only served for a day.

Vice-premier Valeri Simeonov, the leader of the National Front for the Salvation of Bulgaria, has a long and colourful track record of causing controversy, most recently by insulting mothers of disabled children.

Bosnia’s Youth Initiative for Human Rights launched a petition urging the construction of a memorial at Kazani on Mount Trebevic, where Serb and Croat civilians were brought to be killed during the siege of Sarajevo.

The Bosnian court’s appeals chamber upheld the acquittal of former Bosnian Serb Army serviceman Djordje Simic, clearing him of killing a Bosniak man in the village of Sevarlije in 1992.

A group of Serbian NGOs that monitor the country's EU accession process warned that Belgrade is not making legal changes that are essential for progress towards membership of the bloc.

Moldova's Prime Minister confirmed that Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had gifted the former Soviet country with two water cannon trucks used for fighting mass demonstrations.

A court in Pristina jailed Skender Bislimi for ten years for torturing Kosovo Albanians with a Serb paramilitary group during the war in 1999.

The fragile two-thirds majority in the Macedonian parliament for the 'name' agreement with Greece could be jeopardised by the demand by two small parties for a constitutional change to make Albanian an official language nationwide.