Serbia

Elections in Serbia are all about the Leader, the “boss.” The Party comes a distant second.Basking in the glow of another election win on April 3, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told Serbs he was “the proudest man in the county.” The reason for such pride was the 59.3 per cent …

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, experts say the EU and US will want to shore up the stability and Euro-Atlantic orientation of the Western Balkans against any Russian meddling. So might Greece finally recognise Kosovo?Acall by Kosovo for accelerated accession to NATO reflects heightened concern over the stability of the …

The European Union has spent much of the past decade divided and impotent, as it flailed its way through a series of seemingly never-ending crises. But Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine last week appears to have reenergized the bloc, leading to the emergence of a newly assertive EU bound together …

Military veteran Zdravko Ponos, an opposition candidate for president in an election in April, tells BIRN that Serbia will struggle to recover from five more years of Aleksandar Vucic. As a candidate for Serbia’s highest office, Zdravko Ponos could hardly have a better biography: a highly-educated military man, former head …

The political elites in Belgrade have made good use of the politically controlled media to transform China’s image in the country. Close connections with the Serbian political elite and the favourable presentation of China in Serbian media, especially from outlets close to the Serbian government, have made China one of …

Under Aleksandar Vucic’s Progressives, the line between the state and organised crime has become increasingly blurred, raising the question – is Serbia a mafia state? According to the Hungarian sociologist Balint Magyar, in a ‘mafia state’ “The state itself, at the top, works as a criminal organisation.”

Serbia’s power-hungry leader will be following the upcoming election of the next Patriarch closely – but the complex electoral system means there’s no guarantee he will get the candidate of his choice.

Court records in Bosnia reveal that prominent members of Serb nationalist Chetnik organisations have been charged with war crimes, while the Bosnian Security Ministry has warned that such groups are extremists who could pose a security risk.

A 100 million-euro recapitalisation of Serbia’s national airline, Air Serbia, is just the latest injection of taxpayer funds into the struggling company. But how many Serbian citizens know it?

Most of the money Serbia spends on Serbs in the rest of the former Yugoslavia goes to those in Bosnia and Montenegro, where Serbian influence is greatest.