Tag: Balkans

Foreign Minister Enver Hoxhaj of Kosovo credits "Euro-Atlantic" support for helping to build the young country. In an interview with EurActiv.de, he urges the European Union to continue to provide aid and to help resolve lingering disputes with the EU's newest candidate country - Serbia.

There is no end in sight to Albania's political crisis and January's fatal demonstrations have shaken what little faith remained among EU leaders and institutions, write Bledar Feta and Dr. Ioannis Armakolas from the 'Athens Working Group: Transforming the Balkans' at the Hellenic Centre for European Studies (EKEM).

The EU has been suffering from ''Balkan fatigue'' but with the Lisbon Treaty's structures and leaders in place, there is a renewed interest in the region, according to Valentin Inzko, High Representative and EU Special Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). He was speaking to EurActiv Germany.

Political pressure, threats and lawsuits against media and journalists are commonplace in EU candidate countries and other membership hopefuls, the European Commission's enlargement reports revealed on Tuesday (9 November).

The EU is honouring its visa liberalisation promises to the Balkans but has explicitly excluded Kosovo – the ''ugly duckling'' of the region – and must come up with a tangible perspective for its citizens, writes Gunda Schumann, a former staff member of the EU's EULEX rule of law mission in Kosovo, in a commentary sent to EurActiv Germany.

A decade since the fall of Slobodan Milošević's nationalist Serbian regime, there are still ''deep wounds'' across the former Yugoslavia which will not heal for a long time, said former Yugoslav politician Raif Dizdarević in an interview with Pavol Demes, director of the German Marshall Fund in Central Europe and former foreign minister of Slovakia.

Whatever the International Court of Justice (ICJ) decides in its imminent ruling on Kosovo, both Belgrade and Pristina will immediately try and spin the result in their own favour, Gerard M. Gallucci, former UN Regional Representative in Mitrovica, Kosovo, told EurActiv Germany in an interview.

The worst act of the Yugoslavian wars was the massacre of 8,000 Bosniaks by the Republika Srpska army at Srebrenica. Fifteen years on, Serbia and the rest of the Balkans must continue to confront the past in order to move forward, writes Ivan Vejvoda, executive director of the Balkan Trust for Democracy, in a July commentary for the German Marshall Fund.

Despite a number of unresolved issues in the region, one can see a new spirit of rapprochement and genuine cooperation in the Western Balkans and its leaders must seize the moment in order to translate this trend into an irreversible process, writes Hido Biščević, secretary-general of the Regional Cooperation Council for South-East Europe, in an exclusive commentary for EurActiv.

In some ways Turkey is completely European, indeed more European than some Balkan countries, but in other ways it is not at all, best-selling Bulgarian writer Alek Popov told EurActiv after a year-long exchange with cultural actors in the region. But he said the same phenomenon was true for the Balkans in general.

Corruption weighs heavily on peoples' minds in the Western Balkans and the general perception in the region is that it is increasing in both the public and private sectors, observed speakers at an event hosted by Gallup House yesterday (10 May).

Although many of its citizens still feel very strong ties to Serbia and the former Yugoslavia, Montenegro had to ''regain'' independence in order to preserve its European future, Vladimir Radulović, the ambassador of Montenegro to Germany, told EurActiv.de in an interview.

Although Bosnia and Herzegovina hopes to join the EU one day, political infighting between Serb, Muslim and Croat communities is threatening to derail the country from its path towards European integration.

Hungary, the largest investor in Montenegro, is supporting the country's accession to the European Union. The integration into the EU of the Western Balkans is a top priority of the Hungarian government and its EU presidency in early 2011 will be a prime opportunity to promote the Montenegrin cause. EurActiv Hungary reports.

Montenegro's use of the euro despite it not being in the euro zone means that bank notes are accumulated from outside the country, making it ''very easy'' for organised criminals based there to launder money, UK Conservative MEP Charles Tannock told EurActiv in an interview.

Despite the participation of most Balkan states in the two major rival projects of the EU's Southern Gas Corridor Strategy (Nabucco and the Turkey-Greece-Italy Pipeline), their natural gas security interests are best served by the construction of three cheaper, smaller-scale and more readily deliverable interconnectors, writes Dr. Theodoros Tsakiris, an energy expert at the Hellenic Centre for European Studies (EKEM) and a member of the US-Greece Task Force on Transforming the Balkans.

Chief UN Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Serge Brammertz held talks on Tuesday (4 May) in Brussels with EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Füle, Croatian press agency HINA reports.

EU sports NGOs have teamed up with their counterparts in the Balkan region in the hope of advancing European integration.

Austria believes Croatia can wrap up its accession negotiations with the EU this year and join in 2012, Austrian President Heinz Fischer said after talks with his Croatian counterpart Ivo Josipović in Vienna on Monday (15 March).

The political situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina is "extremely worrisome" and now appears to be turning into a "dormant frozen conflict," Hido Biščević, secretary-general of the Regional Cooperation Council for South Eastern Europe (RCC), told EurActiv in an interview.

Macedonia's two ethnic communities, Macedonians and Albanians, need to agree on the future direction of the country, Agron Buxhaku, Macedonian ambassador to France, told EurActiv France in an interview. The diplomat admits that if the EU is to maintain an open door to the Balkans, the candidate countries must work harder to democratise their own societies.

A definitive solution to the Kosovo problem can be found once Serbia becomes a member of the EU, Ivo Visković, Serbian ambassador in Berlin, told EurActiv Germany in an interview.

The Belgrade-Sarajevo train returned to the rails yesterday (13 December), nearly 18 years after fratricide wars prevented the line from linking the Balkan cities.

The European Commission is due to offer visa-free travel to the citizens of Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro this week, triggering criticism of the plan's alleged inconsistencies and bias against Muslim minorities in the Western Balkans.