“Do you know what ‘covid’ means in Bulgarian?”, a friend asked me recently. “It is a combination of Kostov and Videnov”, she laughed, citing two emblematic prime ministers from the […]
Across Europe, France’s obstruction of accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania is widely seen as a step backwards. However, Paris do ...
Balkans countries are likely happy with all the attention they have received in recent weeks. Josep Borrell, the European Union’s high representativ ...
A quiet but fundamental shift is under way in the European Union’s policy on the Western Balkans. With the term of the current European Commission n ...
The presidential elections in North Macedonia last Sunday produced both a winner – pro-EU and pro-Nato candidate Stevo Pendarovski, a member of the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) – […]
One of the most contentious topics in the Western Balkans in recent months has been a proposed Serbia-Kosovo land swap. Under this “comprehensive deal”, Belgrade would regain control of disputed […]
After years of turmoil, Macedonia seems to be turning the page in its political development. The mood in Skopje is quite different from that of recent years: energised and optimistic […]
By Daniel Stefanov and Vessela Tcherneva Macedonia and Greece have defied the stereotype that the Balkans produce only bad news. Earlier this week, following 27 years of tense UN-led negotiations, […]
The Balkans are not as exciting as they once were. The large-scale violence that made the region a central concern of European policy in the 1990s is no longer a […]
The EU has dodged a bullet in the Bulgarian elections with the victory of former prime minister Boiko Borissov’s GERB party. For much of the campaign it looked like this small […]