Balkans

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg participated in the 2024 Spring Session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Sofia, Bulgaria on Monday (27 May 2024), focusing his remarks on preparations for the upcoming Washington Summit. When Allied leaders meet in July, they will take decisions on strengthening deterrence and defence, long-term support …

Azerbaijan received two major leaders from the Eastern European country in succession during the first week of May. Following the Prime Minister of Slovakia on May 7, Bulgarian President Rumen Radev visited Azerbaijan on May 8. Furthermore, the agendas of both presidents were energy-related, and both leaders returned satisfied with …

The leaders of the Western Balkans Six and senior EU and US officials bought themselves on Thursday, May 16, in Kotor at the summit on the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, which was held under the slogan “One region – a common vision”. The summit was opened by Montenegrin …

Will Viktor Orbán really march to Brussels and, as he claims, “occupy” the heart of the European Union? The EU’s enfant terrible has clashed with the bloc for years, but he is no Nigel Farage. He doesn’t want to abandon ship; he wants to commandeer the battered vessel and course-correct. …

A Bosnian Serb former martial arts fighter has been posting videos and pictures online, documenting his new life as a volunteer soldier with a Russian unit fighting in Ukraine. BIRN was able to track his posts, following his journey to the frontline.Afew weeks after returning home to Modrica in Bosnia’s …

The Hungarian government pledged political support to Milorad Dodik as it hosted the Bosnian Serb leader in Budapest, saying it would vote against the UN resolution on Srebrenica. But there was no new Hungarian aid announced. The president of the Serb entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milorad Dodik, was in …

Ilaz Bylykbashi, a photojournalist from Kosovo who began work in the 1970s, recounts some of the historic events he captured on camera – including the aftermath of the 1998 massacre of Kosovo Liberation Army fighter Adem Jashari and 58 others. “I had stayed in their Oda (a traditional room for …

On Wednesday afternoon, the Ministry of Construction informed the public that a contract was signed on behalf of the Government of Serbia on the revitalization of the complex of the former General Staff and the Ministry of Defense (formerly the Federal Secretariat for National Defense). The information was only found …

North Macedonia is a country with a past — or no past, depending on your perspective. The landlocked Balkan country’s architecture, history, flag and even its name have all become an ideological battleground, contested by nationalists and Europhiles, disputed by Macedonians and Albanians, besieged by Greece and Bulgaria. Conservatives seek …

After criticising a proposed new defamation law, the EU and US have also condemned a proposed new Bosnian Serb law allowing the entity to designate NGOs as ‘foreign agents’, calling it ‘unacceptable’. The EU and US have criticised plans by Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, president of Bosnia’s mainly Serb-dominated …