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The peoples of the Balkans united in the disputes

Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, the demonstrations succeed and resemble each other, but the wave of protest continues to swell from one country to another of the Balkans.

from our regional correspondent,

To summarize the situation, perhaps it would be necessary to leave Republika Srpska, the Serbian entity of a Bosnia-Herzegovina still divided where demonstrations of an unprecedented scale demand for nearly a year justice and truth for David Dragicevic , a young man murdered in circumstances still unexplained last March. The movement, which took the form of a radical challenge to the authoritarian regime of Milorad Dodik, was violently repressed at the end of December but still continues.

In December, it was the Albanian students who rebelled against the reform of the university and the intrusion of the private sector into the academic world and which partially bowed the social democratic government of Edi Rama. The faculties are still busy and the movement continues while the conservative opposition has also decided to occupy the street. Last Thursday, the deputies of the main opposition party even decided to resign collectively.

In Serbia, it is also the authoritarianism of the regime of President Vucic that has been contested in the street for three months. The demonstrations began on December 8 in Belgrade and spread throughout the country. Meetings are now taking place every weekend, on Fridays or Saturdays, in about sixty cities.

Finally, in Montenegro, it is a corruption scandal involving the DPS, the party of President Milo Djukanovic that set fire to the powder. Two rallies have already taken place at the initiative of civil society and independent media and a big demonstration is planned this Saturday night in Podgorica, the capital of the small country.

Some are already starting to talk about " Balkan Spring " ...

The phrase is circulating more and more, but the next few weeks will say whether it is true. A major wave of protest had already gripped the region in 2013-2014, but without giving tangible results. On the contrary, the failure of these mobilizations had resulted in an unprecedented wave of exodus, with young graduates being the first to leave the region to try to find better living conditions abroad.

Are all countries in the region experiencing similar problems ?

Basically yes. All these countries are candidates for European integration, but this prospect is unlikely to materialize in the coming years. At the same time, all are experiencing massive structural unemployment, while wages remain desperately low. Finally, they are experiencing increasingly authoritarian regimes, which restrict all fundamental freedoms and practice an exaggerated clientelism: to get a job, it is often necessary to have the card of the party in power, whether in Albania, in Serbia or Montenegro.

It is against this clogged future that people revolt, and they do it away from political parties and oppositions formed, often accused of being as corrupt as the formations in power and to be part of the "system". The regimes in place all claim to be "pro-European" and enjoy a surprising complacency on the part of Brussels, despite the freedoms they take with the fundamental rules of the rule of law. European policy in the Balkans is all too often summed up in a quest for "stability" at all costs, which leads to compromises with undemocratic regimes, to the point that many speak of "stabilocracies" enjoying a white-collar European. It is perhaps this straitjacket that is exploding even if, for the moment, the political alternatives are still struggling to be sketched out.

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