Turkey and Turkmenistan are working on a gas deal that will likely extend to Europe in a bid to reduce Western dependency on Russian gas.
With fears mounting that Russia may cut off gas supplies to Europe, Turkey is working on plans to bring in gas from Turkmenistan and has started transiting gas to neighboring Bulgaria, which has already had its supplies of Russian gas cut.
Ibrahim El Salih lost his job and his daughter and grew increasing belligerent in his social media posts. Then he was arrested for “encouraging terrorist acts”.
Ibrahim El Salih used to work as an inspector for the Protection of Territory at his local municipality in Kukes, a small town in northern Albania. A father of two, he was known as a practicing Muslim and a supporter of the opposition Democratic Party.
Frontex and the European Commission sidelined their own data protection watchdogs in pursuing a much-criticised expansion of “intrusive” data collection from migrants and refugees to feed into Europol’s vast criminal databases, BIRN can reveal.
The European Union’s treats Western Balkans states as a wicked stepmother. While this has not significantly changed even after the Russian invasion on Ukraine, it did triggered a fundamental debate on whether the EU wants at all to admit the remaining six Western Balkan countries (Serbia, North Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo) to full-fledged membership. If the EU would have an intent to admit the listed countries to its membership, the question to be asked is how it could do that. Namely, 19 years have passed since the adoption of the Thessaloniki agenda for the Western Balkans, which envisaged membership of the Western Balkan countries in the EU. Other than the promises about European perspective of the respective countries, nothing concrete has happened with respect to their membership in the EU.
The Western Balkan six – five of the former Yugoslavia’s successor states plus Albania – remain outside the EU as war wounds fester and reform efforts stumble. Brussels should find means short of promising accession to help guide these countries back onto the right track.
The EU will finalise the issue of visa liberalisation for Kosovo citizens in the coming months, Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs Tytti Tuppurainen said during a press conference in Pristina on Monday, sentiments echoed by Slovenia.
Tuppurainen said that Finland supports the Euro-Atlantic process of Kosovo and the Western Balkan region.
On day three of protests, Skopje finds itself torn between parties and citizens who oppose the French proposal regarding unlocking Bulgaria’s veto, and pressure from Albania and domestic ethnic Albanian parties to accept it.
Following disagreements over stances on Russia, Slovakia intends to ‘mute’ foreign policy cooperation between the Visegrád countries as Bratislava takes over the rotating presidency of the embattled regional bloc.
Earlier this month, Journalists Without Borders’ annual World Press Freedom Index placed Greece last among European Union countries for press freedom, citing a number of challenges faced by journalists in the country.
I recently had a fascinating chat with my colleague, Darjan Milutinovic. We discussed a country fighting for its freedom at a time when its independence was denied by a far more powerful neighbor. This adversary launched a full-scale invasion with a much larger army and occupied a quarter of the country while destroying entire cities and committing war crimes. People experienced mass murder, torture and rape, with citizens herded into camps. The country’s economy collapsed but the people fought on, buoyed by a strong vision of a brighter future.