If we had to put what has been happening in the region in the past year into five words, they would be: violence, corruption, instability, fear and tragedies. If we had to use only one word, it would be: violence. At all levels, structural violence drives all its other forms.
We felt this ourselves, our actions and activities were never easy to organise, but lately we have been hitting glass walls. These are not overt bans, we are just told by institutions that they have no free time slots, or they give us the bureaucratic runaround, and doors that used to be open are now closed. Citizens of Kosovo still need a visa to travel to Bosnia and Herzegovina (the Kosovo government unilaterally lifted the visa requirement for BiH citizens), the authorities in Serbia still call anyone disagreeing with them an Ustasha, while the authorities in Croatia label dissenters as Chetniks, it is increasingly difficult to fight for human rights and be against war, but this is not just a problem in our region, it has become global. Fascism is no longer knocking at the door, it has arrived, the question is simply if we recognise it as such.
Members of the CNA team and our associates have written about the contexts where our peace work takes place: Luan Imeri (North Macedonia), Skender Sadiku (Kosovo), Tita Mikulaš (Croatia), Amer Delić (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Radomir Radević (Montenegro) and Katarina Milićević (Serbia).
Serbia: Time: 11:52 Date: 1 November 2024 Place: Novi Sad
In the future, the history of Serbia will be divided into the period before and after 1 November 2024 at exactly 11:52. At that moment, in the centre of Novi Sad, the the canopy at the freshly renovated railway station collapsed and took fifteen lives, while two more people were seriously injured. One of them later died in hospital, while the other is still in critical condition.
Who were the casualties? Two children, students, athletes, scientists, farmers, pensioners. But above all – people: beloved children, parents, spouses, relatives, friends, colleagues, neighbours. Their only “mistake” was wanting to travel by train that day or to meet a loved one at the station. Some went to their deaths embracing, some were starting a family, some had taken their grandchildren with them. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary – the day, the hour, the train schedule – except for the corruption that had eaten away at the foundations of the system and brought down the renovated structure.
Accustomed to violence
What followed, however, was nothing short of extraordinary – because citizens of Serbia had for a long time taken injustice and violence as part and parcel of their everyday lives. This time, however, students and citizens took to the streets, demanding justice, accountability, a system without corruption and punishment for those responsible. The initial demands were elementary: accountability for the tragedy, publication of the documents related to the reconstruction of the station, stopping the violence against protesters and punishing those who committed it, and improving the standard of universities. To these by all accounts modest and reasonable demands, the government responded in its usual manner: with denial, manipulation, pressure on the police and justice system, as well as with a farce of empty document folders broadcast on all national TV networks.
Since then, the citizens of Serbia have been living in the streets and in blockades. For months, students and pupils blocked faculties and secondary schools, calling for their demands to be met, intersections were blocked, as were bridges and entrances to institutions. In this way, the public prevented this tragedy from turning into another routine farce by the government. The protests spread from day to day, from town to town, coming to every municipality.
A turning point was on 22 December 2024 when more than one hundred thousand people gathered at Slavija. They stood together in eerie silence for 16 minutes, and then dispersed. That moment marked the passage of fear to the other side – it was no longer the citizens who were afraid, but the government. Being at that gathering was breathtaking: it was convened via social networks, people forwarded the invitation to each other, most of us came without any particular expectations, and then, suddenly, we became aware that we were part of something big, that there were a lot of people, many more than we had dared to hope. Since then, young people, students and secondary school pupils, took to walking, cycling, running and marching across Serbia, but also Europe, going to villages that none of the officials had visited for decades. People opened their doors to the youth, offered food, the last of the apples left from the harvest. The protests awakened an energy in society that had seemingly long forgotten about it: an energy of solidarity, empathy, rebellion, humour, an energy of life. It is particularly significant that the government did not manage to cause inter-ethnic rifts in Novi Pazar, where the students exhibited a rare form of bravery and solidarity in joining their colleagues from other universities. Huge protest rallies were held in Novi Sad (1 February 2025), Kragujevac (14 February 2025), Niš (1 March 2025), Belgrade (15 March 2025), Novi Pazar (27 February and 12 April 2025), and then again in Belgrade on 28 June 2025. The total number of protests in Serbia in the first six months was, unofficially, more than 34,000. It should be noted that citizens would often go to several locations in one day to protest: from standing in silence at intersections from 11:52 to 12:08, attending emergency gatherings at locations where the authorities were implementing repressive measures, or in a show of support for those detained and injured, as well as planned and announced protests that carried a message, such as calls for a general strike.
Use of force against the people
The regime responded with force: beatings, arrests, use of prohibited teargas and “sound cannons”, threats of rape made to female students in detention, withholding of pay and firings of teachers, deportations of foreign nationals who had expressed support for the protests. Repression has never been more brutal, and the people never more united and determined. According to information from the initiative “Pustite ih sve” [Let them all go], as of 13 September 2025, there had been 927 arrests of citizens[1], with some being arrested multiple times, some mistreated in various ways, such as Luka Stojanović, a student who was handcuffed to his hospital bed, or Bogdan Jovičić, a student who attended his father’s funeral in chains and under police escort. These instances reverberated through the public that was fighting for their release.
At the same time, the international community has mostly been sitting quietly and waiting to see what would happen. The European Union did not go beyond “expressing concern”, with a few honourable gestures and notable exceptions by some officials and representatives, while the United States entered into business deals with the regime and Russia followed its old pattern of playing a double game, clearly supporting the government while also trying to infiltrate the students and protesters and impose its rhetoric and its messages and slogans. It’s funny that the government in Serbia asked the Russian intelligence network to investigate whether the prohibited “sound cannon” had been used on 15 March and that they just so happened to report back that it hadn’t. Several international and domestic experts found conclusively that it had been used, and following public pressure, the government itself first denied even having such a weapon and later claimed it had not been used, that it was still unpacked, only for the “unpacked” device to turn on while it was being shown to reporters, making it clear that it had already been used. Also, in September 2025, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) posted on its website that “the current unrest in Serbia, with the active participation of young people, is largely the result of subversive activities by the European Union and its member states. The goal of the European liberal mainstream is to bring to power in this largest Balkan country a leadership that is obedient and loyal to Brussels.” A more obedient leadership could scarcely be found: Aleksandar Vučić maintains a rhetoric towards the EU that if they don’t support him, Russia will take over everything, while at the same time bowing to Russia with the message, “If you don’t protect us, the EU is a danger that threatens us.” Obsequious before those who are stronger, oppressing those who are weaker, that is the foreign and domestic policy of Aleksandar Vučić, seen through and scorned by much of the domestic public[2].
What is happening in Serbia is inevitably spilling over into the region. The tragedy in Novi Sad and the wave of protests that followed reverberated in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and even in North Macedonia and Croatia. In the Republika Srpska, the authorities openly sided with the regime in Belgrade, which deepened political divisions and sharpened the rhetoric; this is where support for dictator Vučić comes from, while he, in turn, supports Dodik. It’s strange, but not surprising, that people who suffered the most due to the wars and policies of the 1990s once again side with those who were orchestrating those policies back then. In Montenegro, part of civil society expresses solidarity with students in Serbia, while political elites remain quiet or calculating. In North Macedonia, the protests inspired the academic community to speak more openly about corruption and violence, especially after the tragedy in Kočani where 62 people died when a fire broke out in a nightclub, while in Croatia many citizens and public figures have in various ways come out in support of the protests. Thus, paradoxically, the tragedy at the railway station in Novi Sad set in motion issues and initiatives beyond Serbia’s borders, demonstrating that the region is still connected by shared trauma and the experience of authoritarian policies, but also by a shared hope that resistance is possible.
Ćaci and Ćacilend
In the meantime, in a grotesque attempt to shield itself, the government set up a tent camp in Pionirski park that became known as Ćacilend. Its purpose remains unclear – whether to assemble weapons and thugs or to host “ordinary regime loyalists” or both? (Why “Ćacilend” and what it means: one of the first secondary schools to start a blockade of classes was Jovina Gimnazija in Novi Sad. The pupils started their protest, but the school’s director, with ties to the government, was opposed, so he decided to kneel in front of the school in protest against the protests. A few days later someone had written on the school fence: “Ćaci u školu” (which was supposed to mean “Pupils to school”, but Đaci (pupils) was misspelled as Ćaci). Since then, all government supporters have been called “Ćaci” and the travesty of the tent camp installed by the government on 6 March 2025 at Pionirski park, and later expanded to the street in front of the National Assembly, became known as Ćacilend. In a marketing effort to turn the phrase to their advantage, Vučić and his supporters wore T-shirts with signs saying “I ja sam Ćaci” (I too am Ćaci).)
Perhaps the greatest repression, persecution and economic violence is suffered by the few free and independent media, because the government’s tentacles have quashed all freedom and accountability and turned all national frequency television networks and high circulation newspapers into their own propaganda outlets. Radio is the hardest hit – there is not a single station, not even one devoted to music, that has managed to escape government control. The government is currently using complicated financial procedures in an attempt to silence two cable TV stations (N1 and Nova S), as well as the Danas daily and the Radar weekly, and frankly, we are all afraid that they will soon succeed. Without these media and their 24-hour coverage of the protests, the last light would be snuffed out. Citizens protested in front of Radio Television Serbia (RTS) on several occasions, and blocked the entrances into two studios from 14 to 29 April, because they were dissatisfied with the public broadcaster’s coverage of anti-government protests that had been going on for months. The students demanded a new call for applications for candidates to fill the Council of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM). On 28 April, the Parliamentary Committee for Culture and Information adopted a decision to publish a new call for applications for the REM Council, thereby meeting the demand and the students stopped blockading the RTS. However, to date, nothing has changed: the REM Council has not been constituted, RTS coverage has not become more professional or accurate. The media are without a regulatory body, which means that the situation is worse than ever: no ethics, daily hate speech, targeting of individuals and groups, harangues against anyone not part of the government, disinformation campaigns, intimidation of the public, hours of programming devoted to Aleksandar Vučić’s monologues, and all of it unpunished. The closing down of USAID, which had significantly supported independent reporting in the past, as well as the Voice of America and of Al Jazeera Balkans, further darkened the already bleak media landscape.
In addition to targeting editorial desks as “enemies” and “Ustashas”, the government has been using its loyal media and other means to target individuals. Already back in December 2024, Belgrade was plastered with messages targeting Zoran Kesić, host of the show 24 minuta. These obscure messages can still be seen on facades around the city. The Centre for Nonviolent Action reached out to the Press Council when it was indirectly targeted: the tabloids carried an article against one of the war veterans supporting the students, labelling him a “collaborator of the Croatian intelligence service” and saying he was “a prominent activist of the pro-Western NGO Centre for Nonviolent Action”. The Press Council responded to our complaint, but the tabloids under government control do not abide by the decisions of the Council[3].
If there is any silver lining, it is perhaps that this tragedy has awakened a resistance. And has shown us that even in a society accustomed to injustice and repression, there is a moment when fear recedes and citizens rise up. That moment was 1 November 2024 at 11:52 – and everything that followed. There is still no epilogue in sight: on the one side, students and citizens are demanding snap elections, while on the other, the government, which had previously called snap elections whenever it felt like it, is now unwilling to do so. Protests continue in the cities: either in response to an action by the government or as a call for action by the citizens. Every day, intersections are brought to a halt from 11:52 to 12:08 when citizens hold 16 minutes of silence for the 16 victims of the canopy collapse and for their own future. There is a general sense that we are all living under a canopy and it is only a matter of time before it comes crashing down on us, because corruption has eaten through everything.
Katarina Milićević
Croatia: Excessive provocation
We move further away from the 1990s each day, but unfortunately the passage of time has not brought along a perspective of that period through the lens of reconciliation, i.e. looking back at this period as sad and unhappy, as Balašević famously denounced it in his song. This past year in Croatia was marked by big events that were, to say the least, nationally charged and opened up space for the revival of Ustasha symbols justified by their use during the war in Croatia.
The Croatian government adopted a decision to establish the Commission for determining the fate of victims of crimes committed immediately after World War II, to be led by Ivan Penava, a kinesiologist who is now supposed to deal with historical context[4]. In the words of Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, the Commission will “gather and analyse information about victims of crimes committed immediately after World War II” and will “contribute to processes that were started, but were never finished as we in the government would like to see.” The Commission could deal with cases of persecution by the authoritarian regime that considered political opponents unwelcome, but it seems it is another ideologically tainted institution that will focus on equating communist and Ustasha crimes. Finally, the Ministry of Veterans had previously worked on this issue in addition to its main focus of finding missing persons from the 1990s. How this will help in dealing with the communist past in unclear, but the comparison of victims of different systems, ethnicities or any other circumstances of victimisation is both counterproductive and unseemly. The Commission for investigating crimes after World War II is a consolation prize given by one politician to another, because as the coalition partner of HDZ, the Homeland Movement has shown great interest in fighting against the so-called Serb influence in Croatia and those they call Yugo-nostalgic. The Commission could be an opportunity for Croatia to pull itself out of the vortex of manipulation with symbols of past systems, but a society that knows its past is harder to manipulate.
Social rifts
Symbols of the past system also invigorated the concert of Marko Perković Thompson at both the Zagreb and the Sinj hippodrome. The one in Zagreb had incredible turnout, leading to discussions of exceeding capacity, as well as a handful of religious symbolism mixed with, for example, the symbolism of the number 03941158 on the singer’s T-shirt honouring Zvonko Bušić, a Croatian nationalist who in 1976 hijacked a passenger aeroplane in the US[5].
After the concert in Sinj, Marinko Vukman, the guardian at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Sinj, said, “Let them suffer, and let them die in that suffering, those who object to your togetherness, your coming to church, your singing and love towards God, the Church and the Croatian people, your joy and togetherness that shined so brightly at the concerts of our Thompson in Zagreb and Sinj.” He missed an opportunity to mend the rifts in society with messages of peace and love for all members of that society, not just those he agrees with.
The Minister of Defence Ivan Anušić also gave a statement confirming that at Thompson’s concert he too responded to “For homeland” with “ready”[6]. In parliament, MPs Miro Bulj (MOST) and Damir Biloglav (DOMiNO) freely pronounced “For homeland ready”, but as the Prime Minister noted, they have immunity, so their “right to speak” cannot be limited, even though the salute is prohibited, i.e. punishable. It is difficult to implement such bans among the public if ministers and MPs freely and publicly violate them. The Prime Minister himself explained a few years ago how the salute has dual connotations, in the context of the Independent State of Croatia and in the context of HOS troops.
Actions
While the above mentioned Bušić is sometimes termed a political activist, in Croatia activists are treated a bit differently. For example, there was an incident at the parade held to mark 35 years since Operation Storm when the activist group Vrrrane performed an action of covering themselves in red paint to symbolise blood and lying in front of military vehicles in the parade. Their arrests are not contentious, but the failure of the police to protect the activists from insults and assaults by the public certainly is. They were treated as having committed a crime against the state, but in essence it was a nonviolent action that should be protected as an opportunity for citizens to express their views about a military parade and its purpose. Related to this are efforts to adopt laws by the end of the year that would reinstate mandatory military service, which according to this plan would recommence in January 2026 and last two months for military or four months for civilian service, for all those who do not invoke conscientious objection.
Cultural workers in Benkovac also found themselves targeted, in this case by local veterans and sports fans protesting against the holding of the festival “Nosi se”, accusing it of “attacking the dignity of the Homeland War”. The festival’s programme focused on nonviolence, pluralism and solidarity, and included a screening of the film Mirotvorac about Josip Reihl-Kir[7], several theatre performances, including one directed by Oliver Frljić, and talks with reporters, philosophers and writers.
The Minister of Culture Nina Obuljen Koržinek said that “everyone, every artist, every reporter, every citizen has the right to express their opinions, thoughts, as this is a constitutional value,” the festival was not resumed, despite having support from the state, city and province level, because the organisers did not want to see a further escalation of conflict. The Prime Minister pointed out that the festival organisers had themselves said their “provocations were excessive” and that he “understands the reactions of veterans”, but failed to mention anything about artistic freedoms that were being sacrificed.
There was also the government’s reaction in June 2025 to the arrest in Serbia of Krunoslav Fehir, a key witness against Branimir Glavaš, accused in the case of torture and killing of Osijek civilians of being a member of the unit formed for the purpose of committing grave crimes. There was a case against Fehir in Croatia that was ultimately abandoned. According to the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Serbia is party, a person cannot be tried twice for the same crime, which means that if the procedure against him is not suspended, Croatia must submit an application against Serbia to the European Court of Human Rights. Historically, Croatia has financially supported the defence of individuals accused of war crimes, both in the Hague and before Croatian courts, but will not do so in this case because, as Foreign Minister Grlić-Radman says, “There is no right to compensation of costs of legal representation in court proceedings.” We can conclude from this that in previous cases there was an initiative on the part of the government to provide such rights which is now absent. The Ministry of Veterans has promised to cover Fehir’s medical costs arising from his currently deteriorated health status.
We are left to wonder if all veterans are equally valued or only those who do not disrupt the narrative of ruling structures but do oppose whatever is considered the opposition at the moment, be it political, cultural or activist.
Tita Mikulaš
North Macedonia: Where tragedy is foreseeable, but accountability is unassigned
Welcome to (North) Macedonia, a country where institutions do not serve citizens, but those who established them. Here, the government is not a service, but a stage for endless performances of elitism and clientelism. If something goes awry, not to worry – it’s nobody’s fault. Or, more accurately, it’s everybody’s fault, which means: nobody’s.
The social landscape is deeply marked by a chronic and systemic disease: extractive institutions[8] suffocating any attempt at progress, discouraging citizens and feeding corruption. Clientelism and party patronage[9] are not the exception, they are the rule. Every crisis, every tragedy confirms one thing: the institutions are not there to protect the public interest, they are extensions of political and business elites.
In the past year, we saw another tragedy, another in a series of “accidents” that – with a little help from chronically dysfunctional institutions – turn into systemic tragedies. On 16 March 2025, the tragedy in Kočani made world news. At the Puls nightclub, packed with over 500 people, the atmosphere was “spiced up” with pyrotechnics, and a few sparks were enough to set the ceiling alight. Outcome: 62 dead and over 190 injured. Macedonia now has its own “Colectiv” (remember Bucharest 2015?).
A march for angels
While the authorities were counting days of mourning and calculating who they could blame – other than themselves – the parents were counting coffins. We “marched for the angels,” we protested, but nothing changed. A handful of people were arrested, including the owner of Puls. The paradox? The venue didn’t have a licence to operate as a club at all, yet it operated for years – with music, guests, and inspectors conveniently looking the other way. It was registered for “manufacturing”, but was magically transformed into a discotheque for mass entertainment. Evidently, the Macedonian bureaucracy is a wiz at alchemy!
Between the fire in Kočani and the shadows of “Besa Trans”, “Durmo Turs” and the modular hospital in Tetovo[10] – it became clear that these were not incidents, this was a repeating pattern. Institutional inefficiency was not caused by error, it was there by design. The system functions for all those who profit from its dysfunction.
Simulating inclusion
There is talk of inclusion, but that’s still all there is. Reality shows that we care only for those who fit easily into our categories of “normality”.
In a country where the Constitutional Court abolishes the “Balanser”[11] in one swift move, the message is clear: keep simulating inclusion, but maintain ethnic asymmetry. It is unclear whether this is a matter of legal analysis or political calculation, but one thing is certain – it is not a sign of democratic maturity. The same institution had previously decided to review the Law on the Use of the Albanian Language, which effectively limited or challenged the right to its use in practice. This struck a serious blow against the constitutional principles of equality, multiculturalism and the fundamental rights of ethnic communities.
Unsurprisingly, the outcome was radicalisation. There are plenty of examples. The recent sports match in Kumanovo “demonstrated” true national cohesion – chants against Albanians, with zeal and passion. Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski reacted strongly – he condemned the situation and … stayed to watch the match, while the crowd chanted for “pure Macedonia”. A rematch followed shortly: the next match in Tetovo saw retaliatory chanting, albeit in a much milder version.
Perhaps in other countries ethnic hatred crops up like a bug in the system. In our case, it seems like a feature. And the institutions? Nothing new. The same old philosophy: “see no evil, hear no evil”. Evil exists only if you acknowledge it. And here, regardless of ethnicity, we only acknowledge what brings us political points.
Musical chairs
Political parties are still playing musical chairs. VMRO-DPMNE came to power, but it took the recipe from SDSM and DUI: lord it over your coalition partners (humiliate them if possible), install your own people, hold the institutions captive. The template is well-known, successful and, unfortunately, unchanged.
In the shadow of big issues, everyday life continues to be painful. If you’re from the “wrong” ethnic group, a poor family, if you belong to the LGBTI community, or are a person with a disability – congratulations, you don’t exist in the eyes of the system. Your problems are “special” – so special that nobody wants to deal with them.
We dedicate cloying adverts and superficial campaigns to children, but leave them to grow up in a digital jungle. Their idols? Influencers who tell them how to get popularity fast, via violence and aggression. Over 70% of children experience domestic violence. One in three children are exposed to digital aggression. Of course, as a society, we offer solutions, campaigns. Although well-intentioned, campaigns are often aimed only at “our children”, at those who speak “our language” and who “fit in easily”. And the others? We delete the others, we don’t need them!
The media? Chronicles of horror. Sensationalism is not just tolerated, it is encouraged. Violence sells. Critical journalism is a luxury that doesn’t pay off.
Meanwhile, negotiations with the EU continue to be used as a universal alibi for all our failures. Today it’s the Bulgarians’ fault, yesterday it was the Greeks, tomorrow – someone else will get the blame. The question is: Are we really ready for Europe? Not formally, but fundamentally. Europe does not require just a name change, introducing Bulgarians into the Constitution… It requires values. And values cannot be changed with a constitutional amendment. Values that are, unfortunately, seldom practiced by us and are slowly disappearing from public dialogue, not because they are outdated, but because they require courage, honesty and genuine concern for all, not just “our people”. History need not be our destiny.
But not everything is dark. There are sparks of light. Citizens – those who haven’t left yet – aren’t silent. There are protests, there are petitions, there is resistance. Something resembling civic consciousness is emerging. Slowly, but loudly. More and more people are realising that silence is complicity, and that even small acts of resistance make a difference.
It might not be tomorrow, but the day will come when we will have to admit: the system isn’t working. That won’t be the end. It will be the beginning. The beginning of a difficult, frustrating, but necessary transformation. From simulated to actual democracy. From Potemkin institutions to genuine inclusion. North Macedonia is at a crossroads – for the umpteenth time – but this time the pressure is different. Young people no longer want to be just decorative.
Luan Imeri
Kosovo: North Mitrovica – A Picture of Kosovo in Miniature
The breakup of SFRY began long ago in 1980, in the south, in Kosovo, more precisely in the town of Mitrovica. It started with the protests by miners from Trepča. That’s where it started, and by some poetic “justice”, hoping and watching from the perspective of an “incorrigible Mitrovica native”, that’s where it should end. The question of when remains open, but it’s close, so close, a step away from the end!!!
Mitrovica – a story all its own
Historically known as Mitrovica, then Kosovska Mitrovica, briefly as Titova Mitrovica, and ultimately as South Mitrovica and North Mitrovica. The town paying the price of “political peace” and “supervised independence”. North Mitrovica was created by the Brussels Agreement of 2011 and 2013, founded as the 38th municipality of Kosovo through the division of Kosovska Mitrovica. The city is split in two by a bridge, with a predominantly Serbian north and a predominantly Albanian south. Divided by a bridge and beset by problems.
And now a little more about my half, North Mitrovica.
It is the last and only urban area inhabited by all the ethnic communities of the young Republic of Kosovo. The Serbian community makes up the majority, while the Albanians make up the largest minority community. But North Mitrovica is also home to Montenegrins, Bosniaks, Turks, Roma, Ashkali, Egyptians, Gorani and a small number of Albanian Catholics.
The city of North Mitrovica best illustrates the problems of Kosovo. North Mitrovica is the epicentre of most political disputes in Kosovo. It has been prominent in international news for years. North Mitrovica is the centre of all political developments for the Serb community in Kosovo. It is where the “biggest” political party of the Kosovo Serbs, the Serb List (SL), has its offices. North Mitrovica is a healthcare centre for Kosovo Serbs, with its hospital and clinical centre. It is the cultural and university centre, the faculties and rectorate are concentrated in the north of Kosovo, most in North Mitrovica.
The Serb List and double standards
The Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo was not written by anyone from the Balkans, not the Albanians and not the Serbs. The Constitution of Kosovo was written by the Finn Martti Ahtisaari. According to the Constitution, ten seats in Kosovo’s parliament are reserved for the Serb community.
The Serb List was in power in 10 of the 38 municipalities in Kosovo. Up to the last elections, all of the 10 seats reserved for the Serb community belonged to the Serb List. At the last parliamentary elections in 2025, the Serb List had nine delegates, and one seat went to Nenad Rašić from the Party for Freedom, Justice and Survival.
Of the 38 municipalities in Kosovo, 10 have a Serb majority. All 10 of those municipalities were run by the Serb List up until 2022 when mayors and council members from the Serb List resigned in four northern municipalities: North Mitrovica, Zvečan, Zubin Potok and Leposavić.
Looking at it from the perspective of an ordinary citizen, it wasn’t a problem that the politicians started “resigning”; the lives of ordinary citizens have been made more difficult by the resignations that followed from “independent institutions”: the police, the courts, right down to the municipal clerks.
The Serb List has double standards. The strategy in central government, in Parliament, is “NO” to resignations, and a big YES to all “privileges”. While the Serb List strategy at the local level, in the four municipalities in the north, is “RESIGNATIONS” and total blockades, in six other municipalities it is “normal functioning”.
In the developed “north”, it is boycott and blockade, while in the south, it is functioning and “full integration”.
Old and new bridges
North Mitrovica and South Mitrovica are divided by the Ibar river. Rivers naturally divide cities, regions, countries and continents. But bridges, bridges should connect… North and south are divided by a bridge, known as the “Main Bridge”…
A little history about the “main bridge” and “our head/thinking”: the Ottomans built the wooden bridge way back in the Middle Ages, the Germans built the iron bridge, while the current bridge was built by world-renowned bridge architects, the French… And we, the citizens of Mitrovica, I’m talking about my generation, we created the “Bridge Keepers” who guarded the bridge in a strange way: whoever crossed from the south “they beat him up good”, while we from the south started crossing the bridge with stones and “hard objects”… Now the bridge is guarded by Italian carabinieri, and we citizens are still “negotiating” whether it should be opened to cars or used only for pedestrians… My personal opinion is that “the bridge should be opened for the sake of the universal right to freedom of movement.” The Albanian community, being the majority community in Kosovo, should strongly advocate for the bridge to be opened, with the help of those who “protect us and the bridge”, the carabinieri, and should strive to convince the Serb community in the north that it is in their interest for the bridge to be opened. To symbolically open ourselves to each other. The bridge is concrete and iron, but we need to work on bringing people together.
What is happening in the field? A year ago, the Ministry of Infrastructure measured the resilience of the bridge, and this year the EU is doing it. My personal opinion and that of the Mitrovica Citizens’ Initiative is: It’s fine that you’re measuring the resilience of the bridge, but in these 26 years no one has thought to measure the resilience of the citizens of Mitrovica.
In the end, the government started building two new bridges. My reaction was: “We need bridge building, but there are priorities. First, we need to build bridges of cooperation, bridges of culture, bridges for a better future for all, and then, why not, ultimately “concrete and iron” bridges too…”
All our shame
While we’re dealing with big issues, it’s a disgrace for President Vjosa Osmani, who is originally from Mitrovica, and an even bigger disgrace for the ministries of education, local government, for citizens, parents, humanitarian organisations, that in North Mitrovica we have a container school, attended by 16 pupils, Albanians and Roma.
It pains me, as a citizen and as a human being, that in the 2026 school year there will still be a container school in my town, and on Partisan Hill at that. On that hill is a monument to anti-fascism, a monument to miners, the work of Bogdan Bogdanović, who seems to be saying from on high, in the words of actor Dragan Tešić from Draft Theatre: “Have some sense. Where will you go when all this is over?”
Expecting the solution to come from above and from outside
Now, from a personal perspective, as a native of Mitrovica, as the lead candidate of the Mitrovica Citizens’ Initiative: The mistake we make as citizens is that for years, we have been waiting for solutions from “above”, we are “blunted”, we’ve lost “civic power” and killed “civic initiatives”.
We are waiting for the EU, Belgrade and Pristina to solve our mounting problems, and they are sending us solutions that are not at all what we need.
The EU and the international community have imposed sanctions on the government and citizens of Kosovo.
Belgrade is officially, but also unofficially pulling strings in Kosovo, through public and secret financing, by way of permanent and “temporary authorities”. It has financed boycotts, Banjska, Gazivode. All around Belgrade people “keep pumping”, but the straight-A “ćaci” students are from Kosovo. Meanwhile, the citizens of North Mitrovica await a solution from Pristina where the political elite has been “working” for months on setting up the “new – old” government.
There is hope for normalisation – small steps for citizens, and big leaps for reconciliation
North Mitrovica, as the last urban oasis, should set an example that life can and must be normalised. After 26 years of stress, alarms, barricades, protests, violence, blood… Being a ‘hero’ or a ‘victim’ for a ‘quarter of a century’ (26 years) is too much, it’s too much even for Chuck Norris. We’re fed up with everything here, and we’ve had more than enough of big and small “heroes”, of big and small “victims”; we need ordinary citizens. More than anything, we need normality.
We should use all opportunities and possibilities to be as close as possible to “normality and normalisation”. And you can be in the centre of “normality” with cultural activities.
While it was being widely announced from all sides that there would be renewed “war” in Bosnia and Kosovo, with the support of the NGO “AC/DC”, the Draft Theatre from Tuzla performed their comedy “With Whom and With What into the EU” for an audience made up of the Albanian and Serb community of North Mitrovica. And the crew from Bosnia included Serbs and Bosniaks/Muslims.
Dragan Tešić, who was “poking fun” at Bosnia and Herzegovina ever joining the EU, delivered an epic message to us: “Just you laugh, you’ll be even worse off…”
Visa regime
As of January 2024, citizens of Kosovo can travel throughout Europe. We’ve never been closer to Europe, but due to economic circumstances and low income levels, Europe has never felt further away. The Kosovo government made a grand gesture, unilaterally abolishing visas for citizens of Bosnia. But we Kosovars still can’t travel to Bosnia without visas. And for the Draft Theatre team from Tuzla, our comment was: “You can now come freely, and we from Kosovo send greetings. We don’t need a Europe without Bosnia!”
What to say at the end, without making a mistake? Peace takes a lot of work. Peace requires normal people and normal things.
It is always time for normal things.
Skender Sadiku
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Threats and Fear – Never Ending Stories
We’ve survived thirty years of living in peace. In truth, at the time of writing, we haven’t yet rounded off that anniversary and there are no guarantees that the peace will last.
In 2025, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is facing its deepest political crisis since the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995. But we told you as much last year. And the year before that. And a few more times in years past.
The President of the Republika Srpska (RS) Milorad Dodik was convicted on 1 August 2025 and sentenced to one year in prison and banned from public office for six years. The verdict was delivered by the Court of BiH for the criminal offence of failing to implement the decisions of the High Representative as stipulated in Article 203, paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code of BiH.
The period from the initial judgement delivered on 26 February until it became final was marked by numerous crises that threatened to escalate into open violence. The RS National Assembly adopted laws prohibiting the operation of the Court and Prosecutor’s Office of BiH, as well as the State Investigation and Protection Agency of BiH (SIPA). Perhaps the greatest crisis broke out when the RS Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) tried to take over the SIPA buildings. It was only thanks to the composure of those at the helm of competent authorities that a conflict between two armed formations was avoided. Following this, Dodik, along with the RS leadership, initiated a series of anti-constitutional actions, and in response, the Court of BiH issued a central arrest warrant for him as the President of the RS, Radovan Višković as the Prime Minister, and Nenad Stevandić as the Speaker of the RS Assembly, with an order that they be held in custody for one month. From that moment on, the situation with Dodik unfolded in two parallel episodes. In the first one, he disparaged the decisions of the Court of BiH, mocked the impotence of the state institutions of BiH, threatened the judge who convicted him, the High Representative… But at the same time, in the other episode, he negotiated his appearance at a court hearing on the condition that the warrant and detention order be suspended, which actually happened in July, and it happened thanks to the mediation of leading figures from the Intelligence-Security Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (OSA), meaning, again, state institutions.
In the end, even though he had dismissed the final judgement, claiming it was politically motivated, he still ended up recognising it by paying BAM 36,000 to convert his one-year prison sentence into a fine.
Dodik is continuing his political activities as president of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) and with coalition partners through the institution of the RS National Assembly. It is now almost certain that SNSD will use the mechanism of blocking, that is, withholding a quorum in the House of Peoples so as to prevent the replacement of their appointees in the Council of Ministers. As for the executive government, it also finds itself in a situation where it is unable to implement pro-European reforms that are the precondition for opening negotiations on BiH’s membership in the EU.
It is almost impossible to follow the daily political developments and keep up-to-date with all the information. Many things have been announced for the upcoming period, such as the referendums and mechanisms to prevent the implementation of the Decision on calling and holding snap elections for the president of the RS. In the meantime, a new RS government has been elected, but its legitimacy is called into question both by legal experts and the opposition, because the new prime minister Savo Minić received his mandate on 23 August from Dodik, even though five days earlier the Court of BiH had removed Dodik from office as president of the RS.
Opposition parties, while calling for the law to be respected, are also calling for the scheduled elections to be held, highlighting the need for an institutional solution to the crisis. All of this will certainly lead to a deepening of the political crisis, which will in turn feed anxiety and fear of a potential escalation of conflict.
Nevertheless, in reality, life goes on just as normally as it did before the verdict against Dodik. People are living their everyday lives, battling life’s challenges, there have been no incidents. The protests Dodik organised managed to gather a significantly smaller number of people than expected, and they were mostly older people.
It’s not impossible that our society has matured and become immune to petty political manipulation.
But this is still the Balkans, so you never know…
Political crisis and consequences
Far from Dodik being the only problem on the political scene in BiH. The rigmarole around the adoption of the Reform Agenda has been ongoing for more than a year, but it seems the authorities in BiH are still unable to adopt this document, which was practically written in Brussels. There have been countless excuses in the past year, but the Reform Agenda is a prime example of poor or non-existent cooperation between representatives of political parties, both those in power and those from the opposition, who have been blaming each other throughout this process. The truth is that they all share the responsibility.
Be that as it may, BiH lost out on 108 million euros from the EU’s Western Balkans Growth Plan in mid-July, and on 30 September an identical amount of money will be irretrievably lost for our country if the Reform Agenda is not sent to Brussels. Given that all the other countries in our region (Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo) have already met the conditions and received the first tranches of funds, it is clear that BiH will be left out again after this deadline, and the money intended for our country will be redirected to other countries.
With this, the political elites have sent a message that we don’t need that money. They will get their money from the budget and through rigged tenders, anyway. Positions such as those of board presidents, supervisory boards of public companies, directors of agencies and institutes have enabled political parties to siphon off tax payers’ money for decades.
The EU has made it very clear on multiple occasions that its hand is extended towards BiH, but there is a lack of will and readiness within BiH to accept that hand. However, there is also the question of whether EU countries, in the current constellation of relations in BiH, but also in the world in general, can still set the same conditions of fulfilling key reform priorities. Shifting responsibility onto local politicians, all the while knowing they don’t have the capacity to meet the requirements, leaves room for speculation that they don’t really want us to join and that this situation suits them just fine.
BiH institutions are currently an extension of EU and US, and even NATO countries, serving to suppress Russian influence in the Balkans. By sanctioning Dodik and his close associates, as well as suspending investments in the RS, the West is hoping to show that it will not look kindly on the implementation of Putin’s ideas in a territory it still considers to be its sphere of influence.
Based on all of the above, it follows that BiH is still burdened by deep ethno-national divisions, legal uncertainty due to the lack of an independent judiciary, and tense geopolitical relations.
These are all factors that also threaten stability. In this country, only the rates of corruption, crime and unemployment are stable.
Communicating vessels
For almost a year now, student protests and blockades have been ongoing in Serbia. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the collapse of the canopy in Novi Sad, which resulted in the deaths of sixteen people.
From the very start, Serbia’s president Aleksandar Vučić has been receiving constant support from RS officials. Over the past ten years, the politics of the leadership of both the RS and Serbia have created an illusion that without Vučić and Dodik there can be no Serbia or RS, which have been operating as a system of communicating vessels. There’s hardly a political speech by officials in Serbia that doesn’t include talking points about preserving the RS, or by officials of the RS that doesn’t express support for Vučić as a factor of stability in the Balkans exposed to attacks by Western powers that are stirring unrest and encouraging protests in Serbia.
Opposition politicians from the RS who openly supported the protests have faced retribution. SDS leader Milan Miličević was arrested on suspicion of corruption and immediately removed from his position as party president. Nebojša Vukanović, president and founder of the political party For Justice and Order, widely known as the most ardent critic of the policies of Milorad Dodik and the SNSD, has received daily threats and his car was set on fire twice by unknown perpetrators.
As for Bosniak political officials, Defence Minister Zukan Helez and BiH Foreign Minister Elvedin Konaković openly support the students and accuse Vučić of wanting to destabilise BiH together with Dodik, as a way to save himself through this crisis.
The rest are keeping wisely quiet, either because they don’t want to be classified as instigators of unrest, thereby giving ammunition to the ruling structures in Serbia who have been accusing foreign factors of wanting to overthrow the constitutional order of the country from the outset, or because they are unsure of the outcome of the protests, fearing what will happen if Vučić does survive.
That politicians occasionally prostitute themselves was recently demonstrated by FBiH Prime Minister Nermin Nikšić. After ammunition production at the Igman plant in Konjic was halted due to a ban on gunpowder exports from Serbia, Prime Minister Nikšić publicly announced that he had spoken on the phone with President Vučić, who was very understanding and promised the problem would be resolved within 48 hours. A cheap and populist trick miles away from institutional action.
The situation in BiH is no better than in Serbia. It’s just that there’s no one here to rise up and start a blockade, apart from intermittent protests by truck drivers or teachers, and the traditional Pride Parade that is essentially a protest. On a few occasions, there were protests over increased femicide rates and lenient sentencing of killers on the roads. The floods in Jablanica that claimed 19 lives did not give rise to rebellion. Similarly, a public reaction was absent in Sanski Most when it looked likely that a man accused of triple murder would be released.
Too often in BiH, we wait for problems to reaching breaking point before getting on our feet. Most often we remain mute before our own injustices. Unfortunately, ethno-national divisions prevent the development of an activist culture that does not wait for everything to collapse before we act.
Amer Delić
Montenegro: Continuous lack of accountability
Refreshed or stale
From “Let it fall, we need a change” to “It wasn’t this bad even in the time of DPS” – in a nutshell, that’s the situation in Montenegro since the end of DPS rule. Five years later, the political and social refreshment is viewed differently. On the one hand, the opposition claims that the promised changes have not fundamentally happened, and that the socio-political crisis in the country, enriched by deep divisions, has only deepened, through new waves of employment along party lines, further undermining of institutions, to the point that in Montenegro, nationalist and religious agendas are shaping and making key government decisions. On the other side, the government claims that the most important thing is that people have been liberated and that there is no longer a force in Montenegro that could establish the kind of criminal and totalitarian regime practiced by Milo Đukanović and his DPS. And that today’s Montenegro is proof of a political and historical leap out of the darkness in which it had been in the past. Someone well-intentioned might say, “Well, you’re both right!”
The local elections in Podgorica, the most important local elections in Montenegro (a third of the total population of Montenegro lives in Podgorica), were held in September 2024, but did not bring anything new. Two months after the elections, a new-old coalition was formalised between the ruling parties and at the state level the Europe Now Movement (PES) of Prime Minister Milojko Spajić, the Democrats and the pro-Russian Democratic Front and Movement for Podgorica (PzPG) supported by Montenegro’s President Jakov Milatović. The Democratic Party of Socialists remained in the opposition, although it won the greatest number of seats in the elections and is the single largest party in the capital.
The formal break with DPS politics was made, the continuity of bad political practices continued nonetheless and could take us a few steps (years and decades) backwards.
Population census
According to the findings of the Statistical Office (Monstat), within the total population of 623,633, the majority are Montenegrins – 41.12 percent (256,436 citizens), followed by Serbs at 32.93 percent (205,370) and Bosniaks at 9.45 percent (58,956). There are also 4.97 percent (30,978) Albanians, 2.06 percent (12,824) Russians, 1.63 percent (10,162) Muslims, 0.9 percent Roma (5,629), 0.83 percent Croats (5.150), while 2.88 percent of citizens in Montenegro did not state any national affiliation. Serbian is the mother tongue of 43 percent of the population and Montenegrin for a little over 34 percent. The population census in Montenegro has shown two key things. One is that politics still unequivocally and overwhelmingly dictates national and linguistic identity in Montenegro. The other is that all political actors are equally (dis)satisfied with the census results, but the results are such that they cannot be used to fuel the portended radical reheating of tensions, instead, on the contrary, they could lead to a partial stabilisation of the political situation. Put simply, neither side can say, “There’s more of us!”
After the fall of one political regime in 2020, it was entirely expected that there would be some increase in those who ethnically identify as Serbs, and that the number of those who identify as Montenegrins would decrease by approximately the same amount. Compared to the previous census, this one showed slight deviations when it comes to national identity and somewhat larger ones when it comes to language, so “some” are a little more and “others” a little less (dis)satisfied. But not enough, in either case, to use the statistics for further stoking of right-wing and nationalist policies, at least not to the extent that different census results would have “legitimised”.
Continuity in basing policy on simple mathematics of “who is there more of” and who therefore has the right to rule over others. Both sides are trying to claim the census results as a victory that vindicates their political interests as being the right ones. The price of this continuous political engineering based solely on something that should be mere statistics is a possible repeat of “counting blood cells”, and we have already paid a very high price for that kind of counting.
“Regional Leader”
In divided Montenegro, it seems that European integration is the only topic around which there are no major divisions. There is both a social and political consensus that this is the right path for the country. We’re aiming for 2028. The target seems closer and easier to reach than ever before. Montenegro is constantly receiving external confirmation of its progress and approximation to the EU. European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos has said that if Montenegro continues with reforms and keeps up the pace of negotiations, it could become the 28th member of the European Union as early as 2028. Kos highlighted that in the past eight months, more negotiating clusters have been opened than in the previous five years, and more chapters have been closed than in the past decade.
What about in-country support? Over the past five years, there have been three changes of government, and this rate of political change has become a symptom of political crisis, rather than the more concrete democratic progress we had hoped for. Differences in ideologies, political views and visions of the future, instead of being softened, seem to be getting sharper. And while politicians often encourage these differences to score cheap points, all the surveys have shown that the overwhelming majority of citizens want to be part of the European family. The citizens are thus demonstrating greater political maturity than their leaders and this is what will, sooner or later, lead to genuine change.
The first, time-related and technical goal has almost been reached, but other, more important, value-based goals – a society without violence, without partitocracy, without the unduly privileged, without corruption and division into ‘us’ and ‘them’ – are still far away. If these goals are achieved, then Montenegro would truly and fundamentally be refreshed. For now, the only thing European about Montenegro are the prices, and there will also be a high price to pay for continuing to sleep on the job of European integration.
New year, same old violence
Sadly, the 2025 new year in Montenegro began with yet another brutal act of violence. Thirteen people were killed in Cetinje on 1 January 2025. It’s impossible not to draw parallels with the case from August 2022, when eleven people were killed in Cetinje. In January 2025, Aco Martinović from Cetinje killed 12 people, including two boys, and wounded four others, with a pistol he owned illegally. In August 2022, Vuk Borilović killed 10 people, including two boys, and wounded another six, with a hunting rifle for which he had a permit. Borilović was killed 45 minutes after he started shooting, Martinović committed suicide six hours after the murder of the first victims. In the first case, there were only 12 police officers in Cetinje, in the second, incredibly, only 9. Both Borilović and Martinović had previously been reported for violence and illegal gun ownership.
The incident this January triggered a series of protests and blockades organised by the informal student organisation “Kamo sjutra” [Where Tomorrow], demanding the dismissal of Deputy Prime Minister for Security Aleksa Bečić and Minister of Internal Affairs Danilo Šaranović. In early April 2025, they ended the protests, saying that their struggle had been politicised and systematically trivialised from the start. Subsequently, the citizens of Cetinje started protesting by gathering every day to block the road at the entrance to Cetinje connecting Podgorica with Budva and the Montenegrin coast. Citizens are demanding accountability from the authorities for failures related to the two massacres in which 23 of their fellow citizens were killed, including four children.
It was only after the second massacre that the Government announced urgent measures – a new law, stricter controls, confiscation of weapons etc. – but it has not implemented them. No one in a position of authority has resigned or been dismissed over the unprecedented crimes that occurred in Cetinje within the span of two and a half years, and the government is dragging its feet when it comes to implementing the new Law on Weapons and Ammunition. Will the warnings from this tragedy, like those from August 2022, also fall on deaf ears?
The massacre has fuelled concerns about the level of violence in Montenegrin society, which remains deeply militant. Apart from the crimes in Cetinje, domestic violence against children is not a thing of the past, but a growing problem. This is highlighted in the Strategy for the Prevention of Violence against Children (2025 – 2029) adopted by the government, which warns that parental practices that involve some form of violence are still deeply rooted in Montenegrin society. Precise data on rising rates of violence are lacking, but the most recent figures, from a UNICEF study conducted seven years ago, indicate that 69 percent of children in Montenegro had been exposed to emotional or physical violence.
The full picture of the atmosphere in society is further framed by a war between two opposing mafia clans. The security situation in the country is becoming increasingly complex, as evidenced by the series of murders in the last few months. So far, numerous members of both groups (the Škaljarski and Kavački clans) as well as innocent bystanders have been killed in the clashes between these two groups, and it is estimated that more than 70 people have been liquidated.
Continuing to have no clear strategy against violence has already exacted too high a price.
Tomo Buzov
At the initiative of the non-governmental organisation Građanska alijansa [Civic Alliance] and the association “Štrpci Against Forgetting”, a request has been sent to the Municipality of Bijelo Polje to establish the Tomo Buzov Award, which would be given for contributions to the protection and promotion of human rights.
The leading figures of Bijelo Polje accepted the initiative and the award was established. It will be awarded every year, on 27 February – the anniversary of the abduction of passengers from the train in Štrpci – to individuals and organisations working on human rights protection, as an act of remembrance honouring the victims of this crime.
As a retired JNA officer, Tomo Buzov was killed on 27 February 1993 in the Štrpci abduction because he tried to protect Bosniak civilians who were being forcibly removed from the train by members of the Army of Republika Srpska.
It is of particular significance that this award was established by the Municipality from which a large number of victims of the Štrpci abduction originate, which demonstrates the willingness of local authorities to nurture, through concrete institutional practice, the values that represent the foundation for building a just society. In a symbolic gesture, more than 32 years after the crime, the town of Bijelo Polje is repaying a debt it owes to its citizens who perished in Štrpci, and who were killed simply because they had the wrong names.
This is a rare but important example of accepting responsibility for creating an environment in which the heroes of society will be those who are the “real heroes” of the wars of the 1990s, those who did not hesitate to sacrifice their lives to prevent injustice and violence. With this, Tomo Buzov’s humanity and heroism managed to create a break in policies that glorify war criminals, and in which there was no space for genuinely and honestly dealing with the past.
Humanity as a break from the official Montenegrin policy of not taking responsibility in more than 30 years.
Radomir Radević
[1] https://pustiteihsve.org/baza-podataka/
[2] In April 2024, Vučić himself defined Serbia’s friends and partners, which was interesting given that after the SVR statement he called Russia a “partner” while it had previously regularly and unambiguously been a “friend”. The definition was: “You can’t say your friends are those (countries) that partition your territory and call it a civilisational value, while claiming a friendly relationship with Serbia. Thank you. I respect you. You’re very strong. You’ll be our partner in a million things, but let’s not be friends,” Serbia’s president said on RTS.
[3] https://savetzastampu.rs/zapisnici/zapisnik-sa-sto-sezdesete-sednice-odrzane-26-06-2025/
[4] Ivan Penava is a professor of kinesiology and a Croatian politician. He was the mayor of Vukovar. He is currently the president of the Homeland Movement, the Deputy Speaker of the Croatian Parliament and the president of the Commission for determining the fate of victims of crimes committed immediately after World War II.
[5] A police officer was killed during the deactivation of a bomb he had planted in the New York subway. He was sentenced in the US to life in prison. After being pardoned in 2008, he returned to Croatia and committed suicide in 2013.
[6] Marko Perković Thompson’s song Bojna Čavoglave starts with the salute “Za dom spremni” (For homeland ready)
[7] Chief of the Osijek police killed in 1991 in Tenja, together with his companions as they were making their way to negotiations with the Serbs. At the time, he had been advocating peace negotiations and peaceful solutions, which is why he was killed by Antun Gudelj, a member of the Croatian armed forces.
[8] Extractive institutions are a term used in political economics, especially in the theory of Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson (Why Nations Fail), to describe institutions that serve a narrow circle of people (an elite), and not the whole of society.
They extract resources, wealth and power from the broader community and concentrate them in the hands of a small group. Instead of encouraging development, innovation and equality, they sustain the status quo and enable privileged segments of society to control political and economic power.
[9] Party patronage denotes party control over staff appointments in institutions, i.e. when appointments in government and in the public sector are distributed based on political party affiliation and not professional competence or the public interest.
[10] Three large tragedies in North Macedonia that have come to symbolise corruption, lack of institutional accountability and systemic deterioration.
Besa Trans (2021) – On 23 November 2021, a Besa Trans bus on its way back from Istanbul caught fire on the highway in Bulgaria. 45 people died, including many children. Investigations revealed that the firm had been operating without a valid licence for years, while state authorities turned a blind eye. The bus was even unregistered, and the inspections and customs control did nothing.
Durmo Turs (2019) – In February 2019, a Durmo Turs bus veered off the road near the village of Laskarci. 16 people were killed, and more than 30 were injured. The bus was not roadworthy, and it later emerged that its licence had also been obtained in a dubious manner.
Tetovo Modular Hospital (2021) – During the Covid pandemic, a fire broke out in Tetovo in 2021 in the so-called modular hospital (a temporary structure). 14 patients died in the fire. The investigation showed that the construction materials were flammable, that there was no basic fire protection, and that the procurement tender was susceptible to corruption.
The minister of health and the deputy minister resigned, but many felt that real accountability had once again been avoided.
[11] “Balanser” was supposed to be a tool for multi-ethnic inclusion, but it has turned into a tool for ethnic-party clientelism.