Balkan News

BIRN gets a sneak preview of Serbia’s refurbished National Museum, 15 years in the making.

The UN General Assembly last Friday backed a Moldovan resolution urging Russia to withdraw troops from breakaway Transnistria – but getting Moscow to comply is another matter.

Bulgaria solicited a number of allies on the UNESCO heritage committee to amend Thursday's critical decision on the Pirin National Park – although Australia blocked some of them.

Several European countries and the US have called on Romania not to adopt new laws that threaten anti-corruption efforts, as legislators start debating new criminal code changes.

Academics and activists marked the 70th anniversary of the split between Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, which led to mass persecution and the creation of the Non-Alignment Movement.

Following Tuesday's agreement in Luxembourg, Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn said the Commission would start the screening process for Macedonia and Albania immediately – after both countries received a conditional green light to open EU accession talks.

The European Commission's President has apologised after the phrase 'Moldovan language' appeared on its website – riling Romanian MEPs who insist Moldovans speak Romanian.

Bosnia and Montenegro have echoed Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama, in saying they will not agree to host migrant processing camps in their countries.

Belgrade-based visual artist Igor Simic uses mobile phone games to make darkly comic political commentaries as well as create stunning effects.

After trialling the idea of ordering boat taxis via a phone app last year, Uber plans to extend its seagoing taxi service on the Croatian coast this year.

While most Bosnians scan the skies hoping for cloudless sunny days – for Bosnia's small but devoted club of storm chasers, the rumble of thunder in mid-summer is much more exciting.

The young director whose black comedy, 'Secret Ingredient', became one of the most critically acclaimed films from Macedonia in years, says the present, not the past, is what inspires him.

Unions in Kosovo have voiced discontent over the way a new law on levelling salaries has graded the pay of various tiers in the public sector.

Romania’s Social Democrat cabinet, led by Viorica Dancila, on Wednesday survived a no-confidence vote – as anti-corruption protesters rallied against it, beside the building.  

After a number of European politicians mulled setting up migrant processing camps in Albania, Prime Minister Edi Rama has told the German newspaper Bild he would never consider accepting the idea, even in exchange for faster EU integration.

A prosecutor at the UN court in The Hague said she will appeal against the transfer to Belgrade of the case against two Serbian Radical Party officials who are charged with contempt of court.

The three-day WARM Festival in Sarajevo is exhibiting photographs and screening films about wars throughout the world and the issues of ethnic divisions, the refugee crisis and discrimination against minorities.

The Civil Society Group, which collects evidence about war crimes by Serbs in Kosovo in 1998-99, filed 150 criminal complaints to the Special Prosecution Office in Pristina.

Ahead of a new meeting between Serbia's and Kosovo's presidents due in two weeks, the EU has reminded both sides that progress on normalisation of their relations is vital.

Only a small proportion of those found guilty of corruption in Kosovo end up in prison, the 12th court monitoring report produced by BIRN and Internews Kosova finds.