Kosovo
China
Xi challenges a divided Europe
After the May 5-9 visit of President Xi Jinping to Europe most of the political analysts in Brussels who argued that the Chinese President's...
Democracy & Human Rights
G7 Italy 2024 Foreign Ministers’ Statement on Addressing Global Challenges, Fostering Partnerships
The text of the following statement was released by the G7 foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the...
Kosovo
Serb boycotts, protests trigger new unrest in Kosovo
The latest cycle of unrest in Kosovo, a direct result of Serbian interference in Kosovo’s April 23 municipal elections, exploded into violence on May...
Kosovo
Latest Kosovo unrest less than meets the eye
Most observers of Balkan developments will agree that a Kosovo crisis of various flavors seems to emerge with some regularity around the holiday season...
Albania
EU Tirana Summit: Enlargement must go on
The summit's generic one size fits all “membership perspective” statement was seen as good news by most after the topic of EU Enlargement had become a highly controversial subject.
Refugees & Migration
Unexpected migration woes
Brussels has, in the case of the migrant problem, proven that the EU's feckless bureaucrats are persuasive only when they carry a big stick against those that openly mock them.
Albania
Scholz’s Berlin Process Summit yields agreements, draws yawns
The November 3 Berlin Process Summit, held in the presence of six Western Balkan leaders and key EU luminaries in the context of the...
Albania
Conflict in Ukraine and Kosovo are connected
Vladimir Putin claims that protecting ethnic Russians justifies military action against Ukraine. Putin’s concern for Ukraine’s Russian minority is bombastic. His greater global goal...
Albania
Integration or isolation for the EU?
Last week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Albania and other Western Balkan countries. Her main political message was that the future...
Albania
Kosovo-Serbia tensions fading after deal reached
The slow-motion crisis between Kosovo and Serbia over automobile license plates that began with little notice on September 20 escalated into a tense show...
Afghanistan
US Balkan allies to host Afghan refugee processing operations
Even before the Taliban had completed its occupation of Kabul, American allies Albania and Kosovo told Washington that they would serve as transit countries...
Albania
EU enlargement: Cui bono?
EU enlargement: cui bono? Several Foreign Ministers from EU countries visited Tirana and the North Macedonian capital Skopje in the last weeks to meet local...
Albania
Washington gets tough on “destabilizers” in the Western Balkans
On June 8, President Joe Biden issued an Executive Order (EO) intended to update US sanctions policy regarding Balkan corruption and political destabilization activities,...
Albania
Why is the Rama government going soft on Hamas?
To date, the violations of the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) debated in Tirana and Brussels were related to business issues. The SAA, the...
Albania
COVID-19 vaccine supplies trickle into Southeast Europe
In line with global trends, deliveries of COVID-19 vaccine supplies to Southeast Europe increased in April, but the record to-date shows it was anything...
Albania
Southeast Europe begins to tackle COVID-19 immunization delays
In terms of Covid-19 vaccinations, the gap between Europe’s haves and have nots finally appears to be narrowing, after many months where much of...
Albania
Dialogue for mutual recognition will succeed when the EU joins the US in its Kosovo approach
After the snap parliamentary elections of February 14, Kosovo has a new government facing the EU's facilitated dialogue with Serbia for normalization of relations...
Albania
The process or the result: The need to revisit the Western Balkans’ EU integration process.
During the 2005 general election campaign, a senior opposition figure stated that in the event of his party winning, Albania would join the European...
Albania
Serbia becomes regional vaccination hub
Thousands of people from neighboring countries flocked to Serbia over the past couple of weekends to get their vaccine shots as Belgrade dispensed free...
Archive
Kosovo opens its Jerusalem embassy, defying Erdogan
Kosovo formally established diplomatic relations with Israel on February 1, a connection that was brokered by American diplomats in the closing months of the...
Archive
Is Turkey undermining the Washington Agreement?
In a deal brokered during the closing months of the presidency of Donald Trump, Kosovo and Israel agreed to establish diplomatic relations as part...
Archive
Development Finance Corporation’s first overseas office sparks controversy
A controversy has erupted in Washington over a Trump-era plan to establish the first overseas office of the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC),...
Archive
EU launches Secretariat to help coal regions in transition in Western Balkans and Ukraine
The European Commission has launched the Secretariat of a new initiative to help coal regions in the Western Balkans and Ukraine transition away from...
Analysis
Kosovo elections chart a path for reform and regional stability
Kosovo’s February 14 election, the sixth for the country in 14 years, landed the opposition Vetevendosje (Self-Determination) party in first place with 48 percent...
Albania
Serbia leading Southeast Europe in COVID-19 immunizations
According to the most recent data, Serbia’s COVID-19 vaccination program, initially using a Chinese vaccine and symbolic quantities from third country suppliers, now leads...
Albania
An advocacy for giving precedence to the EU’s Copenhagen Criteria in the Western Balkans
Among the precious little remaining friends of a quick EU enlargement towards the Western Balkans, the threat of non-friendly powers encroaching in the region...
Analysis
Kosovo and Israel establish diplomatic relations
Kosovo and Israel signed an agreement on February 1 to establish diplomatic relations in a deal brokered in the closing months of the presidency...
Albania
Montenegro’s parliament passes crucial religion law, but who’s really in charge?
The Montenegrin parliament, in a repeat vote, passed on January 20 a crucial Law on Religious Freedoms which President Milo Djukanovic refused to sign...
Albania
Out in the cold: SE Europe in dire need of vaccine supplies
With the COVID-19 pandemic steadily worsening across much of Europe, the citizens of the continent’s Southeast European region have been left out of much...
Archive
Kosovo’s President Thaci heading to The Hague
Kosovo’s President Hashim Thaci, former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), announced his resignation on November 5 upon confirming that a tribunal in...
Albania
Varhelyi refocuses on enlargement for Southeast Europe
EU Commissioner for Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi visited North Macedonia and Albania on October 6-7, meeting leaders in both countries as well as addressing parliaments....
Afghanistan
Final Trump UN General Assembly address hits multilateralism
In the final address to the UN General Assembly of his current term in office, US President Donald J Trump sent a short video...
Analysis
Trump Administration’s Kosovo announcement fails to impress
The Trump Administration’s second attempt to gather Kosovar and Serbian leaders at the White House succeeded on September 4 just as Washington and most...
Analysis
Kosovo: EU visa liberalisation issue resurfaces
Increased travel access to the EU for Kosovar citizens remains an interesting sidebar to the now-postponed Washington meeting between recently re-elected Serbian President Aleksandar...
Albania
Trump Administration’s controversial Kosovo gambit accelerates
While not unexpected, the Trump Administration has moved faster than many observers anticipated to restart its ongoing diplomatic initiative to resolve a significant piece...
Analysis
The ouster of Kosovo government exposes deep rifts among Albanian politicians
The parliamentary vote of no confidence on March 25 which caused the fall of the government of Kosovo after less than two months in...
Analysis
Kosovo action moves to Washington
With global attention increasingly focused on the Covid-19 pandemic, US diplomats amazingly found time in early March to continue pressing Kosovo and Serbia to...
Albania
Amidst crises, Greece finds time for renewed Balkan diplomacy
Despite the multiple crises Greece is currently facing – a continuing refugee deluge and massive public reaction on some islands, the spreading coronavirus threat,...
Archive
US envoy to Serbia-Kosovo talks to become Acting Director of National Intelligence
President Donald Trump has named Richard Grenell, the US Ambassador to Germany and concurrently Special Envoy to Serbia and Kosovo, to become the acting...
Analysis
Munich Bacchanalian surprises
At the Munich Security Conference 2020, two reality-altering messages were sent back to Southeastern Europe, which incidentally was not the core focus of this...
Archive
US diplomatic engagement helps reopen Kosovo-Serbia flights
Representatives of Serbia, Kosovo, the US, and Lufthansa Group signed a milestone agreement on January 20 to establish an air link between Serbia and...
Archive
Kosovo-Serbia relations again disrupted
Raids by Kosovo police on 28 May in a large anti-corruption operation triggered a serious deterioration of already-strained Kosovo-Serbia relations in the following days,...
Albania
Delphi Economic Forum: Intense focus on Southeastern Europe
DELPHI, Greece - Now in its fourth year, the 2019 Delphi Economic Forum (DEF) has grown into a true Davos-like venue, with groups from...
Analysis
Name Dispute: Nationality tussles highlight Prespes Agreement flaws
If there is an area where the June 2018 Prespes Agreement’s legions of detractors and a reasonable number of its mainstream but unenthusiastic supporters...
Analysis
UN face off over Kosovo army vote
The Kosovo Parliament’s December 14 vote to formally create a military structure triggered the almost-automatic UN Security Council (UNSC) face off December 17 in...
Archive
Kosovo votes to transform civil defence force into formal military structure
The Kosovo Parliament voted almost unanimously on December 14 to begin the process of upgrading the country’s existing NATO/KFOR-trained paramilitary force, the Kosovo Security...
Archive
Limited progress reported on Name Dispute at Ohrid meeting
With only three months to go before a critical NATO summit in Bucharest that could potentially approve the admission of new members, the foreign...
Archive
Stiffening Europe’s southern flank: Washington moves to reassert itself in the Western Balkans
After a period of relative diplomatic quiescence, a senior policy-level official from the Trump Administration began a weeklong trip through Southeast Europe and the...