Democracy

Reflections thirty-one years after the Srebrenica genocide

Members of the group paid respect to the victims of the Srebrenica genocide and reaffirmed the importance of preserving their memory as an essential part of addressing the legacy of wars and building lasting peace in the Western Balkans.

Fragile institutions, deep polarization, and growing pressures on the country's civic identity reveal how much remains unfinished. European integration is Montenegro's decisive chance, not just to close negotiating chapters, but to transform state and society from within.

Local elections taking place in ten Serbian municipalities were meant to be routine. Instead, for the first time in years, the seemingly untouchable SNS faces a credible challenger. All eyes are now on them as a dress rehearsal for the upcoming general elections.

Instead of articulating society’s needs through clear visions, options and solutions that could be implemented through public policies, society was successfully steered through a ritualised gesture of representative democracy.

In his book Sjećanje i poricanje: Od ZAVNOBIHA do naših dana (Memory and Denial: From ZAVNOBiH to the Present Day), Professor Nerzuk Ćurak of the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Sarajevo describes ZAVNOBiH as “one of the most important moments in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s legal and political history”, one that still possesses “transformative power”.

In a time when democracy is experiencing a crisis worldwide, the citizens of North Macedonia enjoy the privilege of electing their political representatives fairly, freely and democratically for the third time in less than a year and a half. 

The Dayton Peace Agreement defined Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state of three constituent peoples, linking political participation to ethnic affiliation. How did we arrive at this point—an ethno-political reality with three peoples instead of citizens, and three sides instead of one state?

The visit to Berlin by members of the Western Balkans 6 Strategy Group (November 12–14) focused on how Germany and the region can move beyond a stability-first approach toward democratic resilience and credible EU enlargement.

 Although the NAP’s focus was gender it excluded intersecting variables, such as ethnicity, religion, age, sexual orientation and disability. It treated women as a homogeneous group, and failed to address categories of women who are differently impacted by conflict, insecurity, and peace-building.