Balkan press review
In the news: Kosovo, North Macedonia, Albin Kurti and the specter of pan-Albanism
Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti participates in the meeting of Western Balkan leaders with the EU and the World Bank growth plan, in Skopje, North Macedonia, Monday, January 22, 2024. AP - Boris Grdanoski
By: Jean-Arnault Dérens Follow | Balkan Mail Follow
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A press review presented in partnership with
Le Courrier des Balkans
Kosovo's Vetëvendosje movement has already presented candidates in Albania and could do so in North Macedonia. Is Albin Kurti's party trying to make Pristina the new political and national center of gravity for Albanians?
Albin Kurti and the specter of pan-Albanism
However, North Macedonia has just experienced a great first: Talat Xhaferi, representative of the Albanian minority, will lead the technical government which must manage the country for one hundred days, until the presidential and legislative elections in the spring. This is the first time that a member of this minority, making up a quarter of the country's total population, has become Prime Minister.
North Macedonia: Talat Xhaferi at the head of an interim government
Meanwhile, the euro became the sole legal currency in Kosovo on February 1, while the Serbian dinar was still current in the north of the country and the enclaves. Belgrade protests against the Central Bank's decision. The European Union and the United States are concerned about an increased risk of marginalization of Kosovo Serbs.
Kosovo wants to ban the Serbian dinar in favor of the euro
In Albania, towers continue to grow in Tirana and real estate prices are also soaring skyward. These new buildings often remain empty, because the purchasing power of Albanians is still declining. Deciphering a speculative bubble maintained by the laundering of dirty money.
Real estate bubble in Albania: between speculation and money laundering
The Constitutional Court ruled that the agreement between
Albania and Italy
, which provides for the creation of two reception centers for asylum seekers in Shëngjin and Gjadër, did not violate Albanian national sovereignty, despite the extraterritoriality granted to these centers. The opposition is outraged by the decision. In any case, it is a precedent that has been created, and which could lead to an externalization of
European migration
policies in the Balkans .
While a new Frontex report on the
tragic sinking of Pylos
last June, damning for the Greek authorities, has just been made public,
sixteen humanitarian workers accused of spying
by the Greek authorities on the island of Lesvos have been acquitted, after six long years of legal proceedings. But another investigation into human trafficking is underway.
The anger of farmers
which is shaking all of Europe also affects the Balkans, where many farmers are struggling to survive, whether their countries are already members of the European Union or only still candidates, while the rural exodus completes the emptying of campaigns. On Thursday, nearly 300 tractors arrived at the Agricultural Show in Thessaloniki, in northern Greece. Stifled by inflation and the consequences of climate change,
farmers denounce the weakness of public aid
. Many are thinking of leaving the profession and the country.
In Serbia, the last elections were marked by massive fraud. Brussels can no longer pretend to turn a blind eye, and the road to European membership could well end in a dead end.
Stolen elections in Serbia: the end of European blindness
?
Lithium mining in the Jadar Valley in western Serbia
is back on the agenda. Two years ago, the authorities suspended the project. Residents of the region and environmentalists are ready to enter into resistance. The mining giant Rio Tinto has been exploring
Serbia's
enormous lithium reserves since 2004
, provoking a vast citizen revolt.
Are maternity hospitals in Serbia dangerous for women?
The testimony of a mother who lost her child in a hospital in Sremska Mitrovica, after alleged violence by a doctor, created emotion throughout the country, recalling that 200 women had already denounced in 2022 the conditions in which their delivery was carried out.
Prevlaka Peninsula, Jadran training ship...
Croatia is reviving the old quarrels which oppose it to Montenegro
, while Zagreb showed great benevolence as long as Milo Đukanović was in power... Despite the direct involvement of the latter in the siege of Dubrovnik and occupation of Cavtat.
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