Greece is one of the most important investors in the Balkans and most analysts are concerned that the financial crisis will have a spillover effect on the Balkan countries. Greece dominates the region’s banking sector with ownership or control of nearly 28 percent of the financial institutions. With almost 2,000 branches throughout the region, Greek-owned [...]

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BELGRADE — The landslide victory of Ivo Josipovi? in the January 10 presidential elections in Croatia bodes well, not just for the country, but also for the Western Balkans as a whole — not least for the region’s hopes for membership in the European Union. The 52-year-old Social Democrat, a tenured professor of international criminal [...]

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BELGRADE — After nearly 18 years, the citizens of Serbia, Macedonia, and Montenegro are free to travel to European Union Schengen area countries without visas. A decision by the Council of Ministers of the European Union on November 30 opened the borders on December 19. This long-awaited decision was met with exuberance and some disbelief [...]

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BUCHAREST — This week, Europe is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall — the seminal event that also proved to be the beginning of the end for the Cold War and the Iron Curtain. The winds of change had begun to blow a few months earlier, when the landslide victory [...]

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WASHINGTON — On Saturday, the Foreign Ministers of Turkey and Armenia met in Zurich and signed accords aimed at establishing diplomatic relations and opening their closed border. They also agreed to a series of consultations and confidence-building measures to resolve longstanding disputes and foster closer cooperation. These protocols still need to be ratified in Ankara [...]

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BELGRADE — The European Union has accomplished a crucial step toward its further institutional consolidation by making the final steps to ratify the Lisbon Treaty. On October 2, 3 million Irish voters helped decide the future of Europe’s institutional reforms €“ and with them, of close to 500 million European Union citizens. Irish voters had [...]

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ANKARA — An op-ed written by Prof. Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s Minister of Foreign Affairs,   in the Serbian daily Politika under the title”Turkey and Serbia Key Countries in the Balkans” gives hope that Turkey may be set to strengthen the Balkan dimension of its foreign policy. Turkey has a new foreign policy understanding that aims [...]

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(Note: Dr. Ognyan Minchev is the Executive Director of the Institute for Regional and International Studies in Sofia, Bulgaria.) SOFIA — Elitist socialists and liberal intellectuals look down upon GERB leader Boyko Borisov with ill contained condescension or even derisive contempt. The Sofia mayor demonstrates a folksy style of unpretentious vanity, which could be compared [...]

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(Note: Dr. Ognyan Minchev is the Executive Director of the Institute for Regional and International Studies in Sofia, Bulgaria.) SOFIA — An unexpectedly high turnout of more than 60 percent has swept away the governing”Triple Coalition” of ex-communist socialists and liberals at the general elections in Bulgaria of July 5. The victory of the center-right [...]

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On April 7th, the RiskMonitor Foundation of Bulgaria presented the findings of its most recent project, Main Schemes for Laundering of Money Obtained from Human Trafficking in Bulgaria, which was funded with a grant from the Bulgarian Fund of the GMF/Balkan Trust for Democracy using legacy funds from USAID in Bulgaria. This first-of-its-kind research in [...]

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