BALKAN PRESS REVIEW
In the news: in Turkey, municipal elections with a national stake
Turkish President and head of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech during a campaign rally ahead of national municipal elections, in Istanbul, Turkey, Sunday, March 24, 2024. AP - Francisco Seco
By: Courrier des Balkans Follow | Simon Rico Follow
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On Sunday, a little more than 60 million Turks are called to the polls for municipal elections in the form of a third round, less than a year after the presidential and legislative elections of 2023. Both for the opposition and the majority of Recep Tayyip Erdogan , this election
has national issues
, especially in Istanbul.
The outgoing mayor, Kemalist Ekrem İmamoğlu, hopes once again to beat his AKP rival. But in the famous district of Kadıköy, on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, a candidate is making a lot of talk about him:
the communist Fatih Mehmet Maçoğlu
, who has built his reputation since 2014 in the southeast of the predominantly Kurdish country.
Moreover, within the Kurdish community, we are wondering about the need to participate in these elections. Some see it as an act of resistance against the repression of Ankara's power, others do not hide their discouragement while an intense witch hunt has been carried out against the minority councilors in recent years.
Report in the region of Diyarbakır
, the “capital” of the Kurds of Turkey.
Read also Municipal elections in Turkey: voters dissatisfied with galloping inflation
Balkan immigrants stigmatized
In this particular electoral context, we have witnessed an increase in hate speech against people from the Balkans. No one knows exactly how many there are, but according to estimates, more than one in five Turks have Balkan roots. These children of immigrants
still experience powerful racism
, exacerbated by the Islamo-conservative regime of President Erdogan who considers them “
too westernized
”.
There are other Balkan immigrants in France this time, who are suffering numerous attacks. Since the mid-2000s, thousands of Bulgarian seasonal workers, mainly Roma, have arrived in Tarn-et-Garonne, around Moissac. to work on farms lacking labor. Today, they have become essential. But their presence causes a lot of ink to flow. And the far-right took control of the town by playing on fears and division. But how to live together?
Our special correspondent tried to understand
.
In Bulgaria, the fragile coalition that was formed last June
ended up shattering
. At the time of the change of Prime Minister, divisions came to light between the liberals and the GERB of the country's former strongman, Boïko Borissov, who had become a symbol of corruption. As a result, new legislative elections should soon take place. The sixth in a row since 2021...
Also listen Major report: In Serbia, making exiles invisible
25 years of NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
It was March 24, 1999. It was 8 p.m. when NATO launched the largest military operation in its history against Slobodan Milošević's Yugoslavia. A “
humanitarian
” intervention , a supposedly “
just
” war
waged in the name of moral imperatives, this conflict has reshuffled the cards of the post-Cold War world, creating new lines of cleavage, reinforced since the invasion in Ukraine. To analyze this controversial intervention, we interviewed the former number 2 of the OSCE verification mission in Kosovo, diplomat Gabriel Keller.
A freely accessible podcast
.
On the occasion of this anniversary, Russia wants a debate at the United Nations Security Council. But only China and Algeria were in favor. It must be said that the terms put forward by Moscow raised many questions, between approximations, false information and problematic shortcuts.
Decryption
.
Also listenIn Kosovo, the difficult quest for justice for war crimes
Energy transition: the Balkans ready to (re)launch nuclear power
It is an international meeting that we have hardly heard about. And yet, no less than 37 delegations gathered in Brussels on March 21 and 22 for the summit organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). A meeting, the first of its kind, which marked the strong return of nuclear power within the European Union.
The Balkan countries, whether members or candidates for integration, took the opportunity
to express their interest
. Nuclear power could in fact constitute a means of putting an end more quickly to their extreme dependence on coal. Especially if Brussels puts its hand in its pocket.
Along the Danube, pollution has long divided Romania and Bulgaria. Especially during the communist era when each bank of the great European river blamed the other for suffocating its population. But today, the inhabitants of Giurgiu, on the Romanian side, and of Rousse, on the Bulgarian side, are resisting hand in hand against a toxic waste incinerator project.
But will they succeed in making the authorities in Bucharest bend
?
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