Violence flared in northern Kosovo last week between ethnic Serbs and NATO’s peacekeeping mission, KFOR. The clashes left NATO troops injured, Serbia emboldened, Kosovo weakened, Russia empowered, and the transatlantic community divided.
As ethnic trouble brewed and the latest confrontations erupted this week in northern Kosovo, a powerful symbol of Russian expansionism emerged alongside the Serbian flags denoting resistance to Pristina’s authority.
RFE/RL’s Balkan Service and other media shared images of the “Z,” which was used by Russian forces invading Ukraine, painted or otherwise scrawled on Kosovo police and NATO peacekeepers’ vehicles.
Croatia says that a big jump in migrants and refugees being returned to Bosnia is thanks to Sarajevo finally implementing a bilateral ‘readmissions’ deal. Data from Bosnia suggests otherwise.
Croatia has been sending migrants and refugees back to Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2017 on the basis of a bilateral agreement between the ex-Yugoslav republics, data from Bosnia suggests, contradicting a claim by Croatia that its neighbour only began implementing the deal this year.
A leaked proposal by Hungary’s MVM Group that would see Serbia cede much of its hydropower resources has been seized on by the Serbian opposition and energy experts as another damaging consequence of the close ties between the countries’ leaders.
Understanding current market or economic conditions and the interests of various competitors is not sufficient to adequately comprehend ongoing geopolitical processes. This is especially true for the Middle East and the Balkans. A deep analysis and deconstruction of existing regional systems are needed to identify elements of interdependence and develop possible responses to all sorts of challenges.
Croatia and Bosnia say the expulsion of hundreds of migrants and refugees from the first to the second country are regulated by a bilateral agreement – but NGOs, rights groups and a legal expert question its legality.
Since the end of March 2023, hundreds of migrants and refugees have been returned from Croatia back to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The younger generation of politicians in Bosnia has brought about no positive change at all in the country’s confrontational politics – and won’t do in future.
Among the many follies generated by the NGO sector in Bosnia in the post-war period is that a new generation of politicians in Bosnia will bring change. This sounded both polite and hopeful. The narrative was that once the politicians of the 1990s exited the political scene, a new and a brighter beginning was assured.
In the Republic of Albania the next local elections are scheduled to take place on 14 May 2023. The last local elections, which were held on 30 June 2019, were boycotted by the opposition, while the turnout at the elections was only 21.6%. As a result, all positions in local self-governance authorities were occupied by the candidates of the Socialist Party (PS) headed by Edi Rama. The last local elections in Albania were conducted in an atmosphere of tensions, after the Albanian opposition had withdrawn from the work of the Parliament and organized political activities on the streets of Tirana at which it requested the resignation of Prime Minister Rama, establishment of an interim government and holding of general elections.
Radicalisation and extremism, which can lead to violent extremism, represent a persisting security threat to the Western Balkans. In the past few decades, the Western Balkan countries have been broadly viewed as a breeding ground for religious radicals and violent extremism. Tackling violent extremism was traditionally a task for security sector agencies exclusively. Nowadays, the police have assumed a crucial role in facilitating a preventive multistakeholder approach at the local or regional level, particularly in at risk local settings. The paper presents preliminary findings of a study involving a sample of stakeholders (e.g., police, NGOs, local government representatives, civil society members, religious communities) responsible for dealing with the task of (de)radicalisation in different Western Balkan countries. The data were collected during formal training courses carried out under the auspices of the EU-funded project First Line on preventing radicalisation in 2017. Survey respondents evaluated the effectiveness of different institutions which have an impact on the (de)radicalisation process.
The Western Balkans faces a double challenge from online extremism. Online platforms are facilitating the
specific targeting of the region by diverse international extremist narratives. Meanwhile regional histories and geopolitics are being appropriated to justify extremist actions and narratives around the world. This dynamic was particularly clear in March 2019, when Brenton Tarrant carried out a devastating terrorist attack on Muslim places of worship in Christchurch, New Zealand.