Latest News - Enlargement: Macron opens the door to Albania and North Macedonia

Text by: Laurent Geslin

A press review presented in partnership with Le Courrier des Balkans.

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Six months after his resounding "no" at the opening of negotiations, Emmanuel Macron said he was ready to reconsider his position towards Albania and North Macedonia. Will the EU-Western Balkans Summit in May 2020 in Zagreb boost the dynamics of enlargement? The EU will present an investment plan in the region in March. In the meantime, 1.15 billion euros were released during the donors' conference to help Tirana overcome the consequences of the earthquake of November 26, 2019.
- Enlargement: Macron opens the door to Albania and North Macedonia
- Donor conference: € 1.15 billion for Albania

Emptied by the exodus of its own population, Albania lacks manpower. In some sectors, such as personal services or construction, we are already using people from Africa or Asia. And in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is the truck drivers who take the path of exile, mainly towards Slovenia.
- Emptied by the exodus, Albania calls on foreign workers
- Bosnia and Herzegovina: truckers on their way to Slovenia
- Unemployment and precariousness: a blocked future for young people in Serbia

It is the sacred union. Croatian and Serbian nationalists from Bosnia and Herzegovina want to purge the Bosnian judicial system of any presence of foreign judges and have started a new showdown with the Constitutional Court. Milorad Dodik relaunches the option of secession from Republika Srpska. Newspaper.
- Milorad Dodik and Dragan Čović, lords and masters of Bosnia and Herzegovina?

As Kosovo celebrated the twelfth anniversary of its proclamation of independence on February 17, on what basis should dialogue with Belgrade be resumed? "Reciprocity", "mini-Schengen of the Balkans", Prime Minister Albin Kurti takes stock of the burning issues with Radio Slobodna Evropa. Interview.
Albin Kurti: for a "peer to peer" dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia

In Serbia, the far right intends to make its political return on the occasion of the elections of April 26, with new parties and new figures, like Miša Vacić or Goran Davidović, the "Serb Führer", recently whitewashed by the justice . What provide a scarecrow very useful to the regime of Aleksandar Vučić. As for the Dveri movement, a member of the Alliance for Serbia coalition, it denounces the "immigration policy" that the government is said to be carrying out.
- Serbia: the planned return of the “new” far right
- Serbia : Dveri launches hate campaign against refugees

Overcrowded camps, exasperated residents: tension is at its peak on the northern islands of the Aegean Sea. The new Conservative government has toughened the tone, even announcing a floating wall, but has shown itself incapable of meeting humanitarian and security expectations. Meanwhile, xenophobic acts are on the rise.
- Refugees in Greece: government hardens the tone, violence increases

The 30th Istanbul Criminal Court acquitted, Tuesday, February 18, nine of the sixteen defendants in the Gezi trial. Scenes of jubilation broke out in court, but a new arrest warrant was immediately issued against the philanthropist Osman Kavala, detained since October 2017.
- Turkey: Gezi defendants acquitted, new arrest warrant against Osman Kavala

It will be a canal 40 kilometers long, 150 meters wide and 25 meters deep, connecting the Black Sea and the Sea of ​​Marmara. After the third bridge and the third airport, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wants to relaunch this construction of a "second Bosphorus", and ensure the extension of Istanbul to the northwest. Researcher Jean-François Pérouse deciphers the issues.
Turkey: Erdoğan relaunches the Pharaonic Canal Istanbul project

The Slovenian political comedy experienced an unexpected twist with the resignation, at the end of January, of Prime Minister Marjan Šarec, former comic actor. Calling early elections remains the preferred option for getting out of the crisis, but ultra-conservative Janez Janša has not said his last word and is seeking to form a majority coalition.
- Slovenia: and at the end of the show, is Janša recovering the stake?

For years, millions of euros diverted from the Russian state budget would have disappeared in fictitious real estate investments on the Croatian coast. According to an investigation by the OCCRP, these sums have notably been used to fund the bank accounts of the Croatian oligarch Mihajlo Perenčević.
- Croatia: the millions of Russians who end up in the pockets of the oligarchs

Their name: Zelena gerila, the green guerrilla. Their identity: unknown. Their objective: to secretly reforest the threatened hill of Marjan, which overlooks Split. Meet.
- Croatia: the "green guerrilla" which reforests the forest of Split

The Parliament of North Macedonia finally adopted the "Law on the Public Prosecutor's Office", supposed to make forget the bankruptcy of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (SJO). The aim is to prove to Westerners that the rule of law is strengthening in the small country. The VMRO-DPMNE denounces a law torn from the forceps.
- North Macedonia: justice reform wrested from the forceps

These are Chinese workers who carry out the Bar-Boljare highway, crossing Montenegro from north to south. Those who went to China for the New Year celebrations have still not returned due to the coronavirus epidemic. New delays to be feared for this site which has been dragging on for years.
- Montenegro: because of the coronavirus, the highway construction site is short of workers

The news fell like a knife at the start of the week: Sofia canceled the exhibition planned at the Louvre this summer on Arts and cultures in Ottoman Bulgaria from the 16th to the 18th century. For the French museum, it was a question of illustrating the cultural links between Christians and Muslims. But on the Bulgarian side, we challenge this vision. Explanations.
- Islam and icons: Bulgaria gets angry with the Louvre

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