Balkans

Bulgaria’s government is talking tough on North Macedonia’s EU ambitions, but analysts and ordinary Bulgarians see it as an electoral ploy and are forging their own connections.

The cases of former Kosovo Liberation Army officials in The Hague should exert pressure on Serbia to prosecute its own former officials for war crimes in Kosovo, says Lotte Leicht of Human Rights Watch.

The Greek prime minister’s visit to the United Arab Emirates comes amid tensions both states have with Turkey. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) welcomed Greece’s head of government for an official visit today. The two states signed a foreign policy and defense agreement as their mutual tensions with Turkey in …

Turkey is touting its domestic defence industry, but its expansion remains dependent on Western know-how. Acall by Greece last month for its European Union partners to consider an arms embargo on Turkey in a standoff over maritime boundaries in the Eastern Mediterranean has highlighted the growing collaboration between the Turkish …

Twenty-five years ago, a peace deal crafted at a United States air base in Ohio ended the Bosnian war. Today, nobody likes it, but in a politically-divided country, agreement on any reform will be tough to reach. Some want it rewritten, smoothing Bosnia’s path to membership of the European Union. …

A Bulgarian startup has found remote work in the AI industry for hundreds of refugees in the Balkans and the Middle East. Two years into the Syrian war, in 2013, Shyar Ali fled his native Aleppo, ending up in a refugee camp in Iraq where he worked as a labourer …

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has responded to Turkey’s issuing of a new navigational warning (Navtex) extending the presence of research vessel Oruc Reis in the Mediterranean, including areas within Greece’s continental shelf, until November 14.

Romania’s announcement that the country would ban Chinese tech giant Huawei from its networks was the latest move to roll back China’s dominance in cutting-edge 5G telecommunication in Central and Southeastern Europe.

As the retrial of two top wartime officials of Serbia’s State Security Service enters its final phase, the verdict could establish the facts of Belgrade’s much-denied direct involvement in the 1990s conflicts in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. “Do you recognise the person we are looking at?”

President Hashim Thaci’s uneasy relationship with the Kosovo Specialist Chambers has gone through many phases over the past five years. Accusations from the prosecution in The Hague last week that Thaci has been seeking to undermine the ‘Special Court’ are only the latest chapter in a story that has seen …