Zoran Radosavljevic Archives

Jean-Claude Juncker completed his shuttle diplomacy tour of the Western Balkans this week in the manner of an ageing soccer captain playing the last games of his career.

A prolonged crisis in Croatia's top employer, food and retail concern Agrokor, took another dramatic twist on Wednesday (21 February) as its government-appointed caretaker manager stepped down and the Zagreb Stock Exchange suspended trade in all Agrokor companies.

Turkey's sentencing of five journalists to life for involvement in a failed 2016 coup shows that the country's judiciary cannot make independent decisions, the president of the Association of European Journalists said on Monday and urged the Council of Europe to take action.

The Catalan crisis, which kept Spain on edge for a few months last year, appears to have been laid to rest. Whether it's once and for all or until next time remains to be seen.

Europe is back, the world’s business and political elites heard in Davos this week. But, as Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa rightly cautioned, there is no room for complacency.

EU leaders should start debating the next multi-annual budget as soon as possible because the talks will be more complex than ever and may produce legal disputes that will force the union to revert to an interim budget in 2020, a senior adviser to Commissioner Günther Oettinger told EURACTIV.com.

Events in the Western Balkans may indeed seem peripheral to the EU, particularly as it braces for debates on the new budget and eurozone reform, but let’s not forget the old quote by Winston Churchill: “The Balkans produce more history than they can consume.”

A Kosovo Serb leader was shot dead outside his party offices in Serb-run northern Kosovo on Tuesday (16 January), raising concerns of renewed tensions in the Western Balkans and prompting a Serbian delegation to cancel EU-sponsored talks with Kosovo in Brussels.

Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Friday (12 January) he would personally talk to each of the six Western Balkan leaders to hear what they expect from the plans by Bulgaria's EU presidency to revive their long-stalled EU membership prospects.

EU chief Donald Tusk warned in an emotional speech on Thursday night (11 January) against having a "game of thrones" in the Western Balkans, as Brussels seeks to encourage the region's efforts to reform, leave behind ethnic hostilities and join the bloc.

Member states may not reach a stage where they could take a vote on sanctions against Poland during Bulgaria's six month EU presidency, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said on Thursday (11 January), explaining he would prefer to resolve the crisis through dialogue and avoid sanctions altogether.

Bulgaria, buoyed by its good macroeconomic indicators, expects to apply by the end of June to join the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM-2), an anti-chamber for adopting the single currency, Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov said on Thursday (11 January).

Looking at 14 years of the EU's attempts to determine once and for all what to do with the Balkans (since the first EU-Balkan Summit in Thessaloniki in 2003), one cannot help wondering whether wholehearted commitment on both sides might have been lacking all along.

The EU will start negotiating in January its future relations with the UK - along the lines of free trade agreements it has signed with Canada or Japan - and agrees to have a transition period in place from when Britain formally leaves the bloc in March 2019 until the end of 2020.

Slovenia and Croatia failed to resolve a border dispute that has poisoned their relations in last-minute talks between their two prime ministers on Tuesday (19 December) and Slovenia said it would now implement an international court ruling which Zagreb dismisses as invalid.

The European Ombudsman has asked European Council President Donald Tusk to consider publishing information about meetings he and his cabinet hold with interest representatives, in line with the EU's push for more transparency.

The UK economy is likely to suffer for a decade after leaving the EU under the most probable post-Brexit trade scenarios, according to a new study from the RAND Corporation, made available to EURACTIV.com before publication.

The ride-hailing app Uber has joined global public transport association UITP to help improve mobility in the cities, reduce the use of private cars and avoid congestions. The move should also help Uber shed its image of a scandal-hit digital novelty app and become a trusted partner in urban mobility.

The Western Balkans countries are in a much better shape than they were in the 1990s but the European Union should open accession talks with them as soon possible or risk seeing them wooed by Russia, China or radical Islam, the prime minister of Albania told an event in Brussels on Tuesday (5 December).

Many's the time the EU has seen months of deadlocked negotiations produce a last-minute breakthrough. News of progress from Theresa May's fateful talks with EU chiefs in Brussels on Monday may, therefore, not come as a major surprise.

Maltese police have arrested ten suspects in the murder of anti-corruption blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said on Monday (4 December), after an EU delegation left the island last week saying there were serious concerns about the rule of law there.

Liquid E-fuels made from renewable power, the latest buzzword among proponents of alternative fuels, are not the answer to Europe's quest to decarbonise transport because their production is still inefficient and costly, according to a new study being published today (1 December).

A Bosnian Croat war crimes suspect died on Wednesday (29 November) after apparently taking poison in the courtroom of the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, which confirmed his sentence for atrocities during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.

Exactly a week from now, on 4 December, the messy Brexit negotiations might become somewhat clearer.