Democracy

Every day I go to the mountains with my colleague Dean Blažević and some Bosnian volunteers to look for people. Sometimes 20 miles deep in the woods we find women, children, teens and adult men. Frozen, hungry, with wet clothes and some sick or beaten by Croatian border police.

The awarding of the Nobel Prize to Peter Handke has far-reaching consequences: His denial of the greatest atrocities which were committed after World War Two on European soil, is likely to disrupt the foundation of our democracies. Values and standards of a civilisational coexistence have been weakened. Thus, anything seems possible again: Human dignity is once more violable.

The “Strategy Group for a political, societal and economic European integration of the Western Balkans Six” is a group of legal, historical and political researches from all WB6 countries organized by Heinrich Böll Stiftung’s Belgrade, Sarajevo and Berlin offices. Its aim is to credibly advocate for a more effective European integration of the Balkans in European as well as Balkan capitals.  pdf

The “Strategy Group for a political, societal and economic European integration of the Western Balkans Six” is a group of legal, historical and political researches from all WB6 countries organized by Heinrich Böll Stiftung’s Belgrade, Sarajevo and Berlin offices. Its aim is to credibly advocate for a more effective European integration of the Balkans in European as well as Balkan capitals.  pdf

The European Commission considers on 22 October 2019 that Croatia fulfils the necessary conditions for its entry into the Schengen area. Despite numerous reports and appeals from various civil society (Are you serious, Center of peace study) representatives, gouvernmental and non-governmental organisations (UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Council for Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International..) to alert Brussels and the public concerning the human rights violations committed by Croatia.

The world is far from achieving equality between men and women. For years, Southeastern Europe has seen almost all its political decisions being made by men; it is now the time for women to stand together and reclaim their voice in the public space.

The protection of EU external border has become one of the crucial issue or migrant and refugee crisis that Europe has been experiencing for almost five years. Since 2015 the EU external border as well as some Western Balkan countries such as Serbia and North Macedonia experience erection of physical barriers on borders. This should symbolize that individual countries sending political message to its citizens saying, ‘you are protected’ at any cost when it comes rule of law on the EU and its member states. The most profound example is Hungary where politicization of border issue has dominated the public discussion about rule of law or solidarity with people need as well as other EU member states.

There is a grotesque reversal of the paradigm of law and order. Neither laws nor international standards determine what is rightful, but criminal power cartels, which show close overlapping with the dominant parties. As a consequence, thereof, personal and human rights are largely undermined, the individual barely stands a chance in those structures outside the legal jurisdiction to assert his/her rights. The EU, has not been able to contain those destructive forces and to emphatically campaign for its agenda – democracy, liberality, diversity. With its trepidation, which the EU displayed already during the Bosnian War, the EU now fails anew to defend European values in the Balkans. This however increasingly also endangers the EU in its very foundations: raging destructing ideologies, which have forged ahead during the 1990ies, now bounce back into the EU and endanger the cohesion inside the Union.

A devastating decline of Human-Rights is happening in Bosnia and Herzegovina and more particularly in the Una-Sana Canton. In just a few weeks, almost all the fundamental rights guaranteed by international law were continuously violated: deprivation of access to water, food and shelters and violation of the right to medical care and freedom of movement

North Macedonia must continue to wait for the start of EU accession negotiations. The European Councils decision has triggered a political crisis in the country. Not only the EU has lost credibility, but also Zoran Zaev's government. It should not be forgotten, however, that the upcoming new elections will once again confront in particular the civil society in North Macedonia with challenges that should not be underestimated.