Balkan press review

In the spotlight: thirty years after the start of the war, has Sarajevo changed era?

View of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

© Midhat Mujkic / Getty Images

Text by: Courrier des Balkans Follow |

Marion Roussey

4 mins

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On April 6, 1992, the international community recognized the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serb forces bombarded Sarajevo from the hills overlooking the city.

Thirty years later, the city commemorated the start of the war with a

considerably reduced program

 compared to 2012. The reason: two years of pandemic and political instability that is paralyzing the country.

Haris Bjelak was 28 when the war started.

He keeps a bitter taste and denounces the way in which the nationalists have since seized power.

Corruption, which plagues institutions, led to the

closure of the Sarajevo Tobacco Factory

.

An industrial flagship of Yugoslavia, a symbol of the city and its resistance during the war, the factory closed its doors on March 31, a few days before the commemorations.

For many residents,

Sarajevo has changed a lot

.

Ruined, renovated or brand new buildings fit together in a tangle of Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian styles.

Created last summer, a collective of young street artists dream of

giving them a new identity

.

In Serbia, Aleksandar

Vučić 

claims victory

In terms of electoral confusion, Serbia again distinguished itself on Sunday April 3, when voters were called to 

early legislative, presidential and partial municipal elections

.

Fraud and violence marked the election which ended with the 

postponement of the announcement of the results

by the Electoral Commission of Serbia.

In the end, unsurprisingly, the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) of President Aleksandar Vučić still dominates the political scene unchallenged, but the democratic opposition

will sit in Parliament

and the far right will make a breakthrough there.

Black April and soaring prices in the Balkans

Inflation is strangling us, raise wages!

Thousands of people

marched on April 6 in Greece

, as a general strike paralyzed the country.

Wages have hardly been raised since the economic crisis of 2012, while inflation soared after two years of pandemic followed by the war in Ukraine.

In North Macedonia, while the cost of living has been steadily increasing for two years, the unions

welcomed at the end

of March an increase in the minimum wage, now set at around 300 euros per month.

But this is still far from being enough to lift more than a fifth of the population from poverty.

The phenomenon could aggravate the exodus from the country.

In twenty years, North Macedonia has lost 10% of its inhabitants.

The official results of the

first census organized since 2002

and published last week confirm this.

In Croatia, the energy crisis

raises fears of a black April

.

To compensate for the consequences of rising gas and electricity prices, the government has taken measures.

But that's not enough and more and more people can't get by.

Among them, a majority of retirees and large families.

Russian spy alert

If the war continues in Ukraine, Croatia could

suspend its oil exports

to Belgrade by May 15.

The measure is part of a new series of sanctions taken by the European Union against Russia, which owns 56% of the Serbian oil company NIS.

Without this contribution, the country could quickly find itself in lack of fuel.

The sanctions have a considerable impact on the Russian economy and worry Moscow.

Since the start of the invasion in Ukraine, around 70,000 workers, mostly from the tech sector, have reportedly left Russia to escape military conscription, political instability and measures adopted by the international community to stop the madness. of Vladimir Putin.

In Serbia, more than 300 companies

have been created by Russian nationals

in the last ten weeks.

In Bulgaria and North Macedonia, several Russian diplomats were

expelled this week

on suspicion of seeking to sabotage relations between the two countries in order to increase tensions in the Balkans and prevent North Macedonia's European integration. .

Meanwhile in Berlin, an

international conference

, organized on April 5 at the initiative of Germany, France and Romania, raised 700 million euros in aid for Moldova, one of the first host country for Ukrainian refugees.

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