Southern Balkans

While Hungary has always supported its minority population in neighbouring countries, experts say that under the rule of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the country has significantly increased its presence in the Balkans. Hungary’s leader is increasingly...

Data that BIRN has obtained show that more than 160 migrants and refugees currently in the Balkans are unaccompanied children or children separated from parents. Most are staying in collective centres, hostels, asylum centres, parks, or...

A Moscow court has approved the arrest of a Moldovan-born energy executive accused of spying for Romania, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported. A Moscow court has approved the arrest of a Moldovan-born executive of the...

Five political parties proposed changes to Bosnian electoral law to avoid an institutional crisis scenario in which October’s general elections go ahead without any legal basis for electing the Federation entity parliament’s upper chamber. MPs in...

Efraim Zuroff, the head of the Nazi-hunting Wiesenthal Centre, arrived in Zagreb in July 1998 to find the city gripped by a celebratory frenzy as Croatia beat Germany in the quarter-finals of the football World Cup...

With its hot dry summers, Kosovo has long been known as a good land to cultivate wine but – until recently – small fruits did not feature much in the country’s agriculture. This is changing, however,...

Romania’s Social Democrat-led parliament adopted changes to the country’s criminal code, ignoring warnings from experts and international institutions that they threaten the rule of law and prosecutors’ independence. Romania was set for more political turmoil on...

The European Commission said it would keep a neutral position over Slovenia’s decision to refer Croatia to the Court of Justice of the European Union over its disrespect for a court ruling on their sea border....

Bulgarian leader Boyko Borissov has said the EU needs to toughen its stance on migration, as his country prepares to pass the EU presidency to Austria – which has designated the fight against “illegal migration” its...

Archaeologists from Albania and Poland say a ‘huge’ city uncovered beneath a grassy hill near Shkodra could be the city of Bassania that the Roman historian Livy once described. Local inhabitants thought it was just a...