Balkaninsight.com

It claimed to have kicked the habit. But Montenegro is again at the heart of a global trade in illegal cigarettes. Its Balkan neighbours risk getting hooked too.

Bosnia promised to submit its additional answers to the EU questionnaire by October this year - but with the end of 2018 is sight, the delivery date has been missed already.

After a mass protest against political violence in the Serbian capital drew thousands of people, the opposition is announcing a series of anti-government rallies, claiming the fall of the government has begun.

Behind the protests in Albania over rises in tuition fees, a deeper disappointment with a Socialist government that many say favours the rich seems to be emerging.

For four years, officials in Cairo, London and Brussels rang alarm bells over the production of billions of cigarettes bearing the name of Egypt’s most popular brand at a state-run factory in Montenegro and, they believed, smuggled across North Africa from lawless Libya. Montenegro, despite negotiating to join the European Union, ignored them.

While senior state officials attended the unveiling of a new monument to Croatia’s first President, Franjo Tudjman, praising his contribution to the country's independence, some opposition and rights groups protested, denouncing his record.

Most Balkan countries on Monday in Morocco signed the UN 'Global Compact on Migration' – although Bulgaria joined a large bloc of Central and East European countries in refusing to do so.

A new survey says that half the citizens of the poverty-stricken country would leave, if they had the chance to do so.

Macedonia’s Foreign Ministry is trying to calm a potential dispute with Bulgaria, after the Bulgarian Defence Minister accused the Skopje government of 'playing tricks with history'.

Defence lawyers for Ratko Mladic, who is appealing aganst his war crimes conviction, say they will file a request for a four-day leave from detention for the former Bosnian Serb Army chief.

A Belgrade court on Monday jailed Darko Saric for 15 years for smuggling several tons of cocaine – though the first-instance verdict may be appealed.

The radical or ‘illiberal’ right is on the march in Europe – but don’t expect these disparate movements to team up effectively.

Moldova’s ruling party says it wants to cut the number of deputies in parliament. Its opponents say it is just trying to win more votes.

The long-awaited verdict in the trial of the alleged cocaine smuggler and crime boss Darko Saric will end a case that has dragged on for four years, with repeated – and in some views, suspicious – delays.

The European Court of Human Rights, ECHR, is about to hear another case against Bosnia, over discrimination in the city of Mostar, where no local elections have been held since 2008.

While rights experts say the proposed amnesty will violate legal principles and create a dangerous precedent, others view it as a price worth paying to get the ‘name’ agreement with Greece through parliament.

Thousands of citizens staged a protest in Serbia's capital, Belgrade, on Saturday against "political violence", after an opposition politician was brutally attacked in the southern city of Krusevac.

Activists led by the CURE Foundation NGO handed out white flowers in the Bosnian capital on Saturday as they launched an initiative to name December 8 as a national memorial day for women who were killed or abused during wartime.

A Kosovo journalist who was a victim of domestic violence has shared her story on television, urging other victims to come forward and fight the often hidden and 'shameful' phenomenon.

Prosecutors have started probing claims that a company falsely claimed to be part of a major US-registered company to win an important public works contract in Tirana.