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Enlargement Uncertainty: Reframing EU-Western Balkans Relations

Enlargement Uncertainty: Reframing EU-Western Balkans Relations

Published: 15 November 2023
2-pager
The core of the EU’s relationship with the WB lies in the promise of full accession with equal rights and responsibilities. As the EU enters a period of reflection and potential reform, it must reintroduce clarity, determination, and honesty into its interaction with WB6.
The Past is now

Perspectives - The Past is now

Published: 24 May 2023
Publication
The Belgrade and Sarajevo offices of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, together with our editor Miloš Ćirić, have invited relevant voices to reflect on what was achieved over the past decades in the fields of documentation, memorialization, and processing of recent history. We wanted to learn which actors and factors determine the cultural context, who could deconstruct the hate narratives, how nationalism affects the culture of remembrance in the respective societies, and why the most brutal of experiences did not lead to a better understanding of common history in the region. In this volume, the role of the external actors is also critically questioned: what were Western donors able to achieve? Why has dealing with history never become mainstream despite the efforts of many brave, consistent and professional individuals? Is there even a need for a moratorium on dealing with the past so that new spaces for peaceful coexistence can emerge?

Positioning paper on the proposal of land swap as part of a normalization agreement between Serbia and Kosovo

Published: 17 July 2023
policy
This brief examines the pitfalls of border change as a possible solution to the Serbia-Kosovo problem, and addresses the question of integrity of the international community’s involvement into this discourse. It does so by confronting value-based and pragmatic-realpolitik arguments, essentially arguing that partitioning Kosovo is neither a guarantee for normalization, nor a step towards the EU for both Kosovo and Serbia.
Who is afraid of gender Macedonia

Who is afraid of gender?

Published: 17 March 2023
analysis
However, the goal is not to expose or mock these organizations but rather to better understand them and gain knowledge towards: human rights promotion for everyone and identifying how to oppose the hegemonic framing strategies, representation and discursive construction of women and sexual and gender minorities proposed by anti-gender movements.

Position Paper On WB6

Published: 1 April 2022
policy brief
Recommendations and expectations for German and European policy. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has direct and significant implications for the Western Balkans. The lack of a consistent and convincing EU perspective and U.S. engagement in the region opened up space for other actors and scenarios aimed at recomposing the Western Balkans as well as promoted regressive tendencies throughout the region.
People on the Move in BiH 2019-2021

People on the Move in BiH 2019-2021

Published: 30 March 2022
This report is a follow up to Heinrich Boll Stiftung’s 2019 report People on the Move in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2018: Stuck in the corridors to the EU. In the first report, we covered the situation in BiH during 2018, and how it carried on in 2019. Since we wrote the report nothing much, but at the same time a lot has changed and happened with relation to the people on the move who have continued to come to the country to this day. Unlike previous years, the majority of people arriving are from Afghanistan.
Zelena tranzicija i socijalna (ne)pravda

Perspectives - Green transition and social (in)justice

Published: 23 December 2021
There is a great difference between a mere survival of the humankind and the preservation of quality of life. That is why the role of justice in the green transition goes far beyond the entitlement to a safe and healthy environment. The coming climate crisis takes place in a world characterized by a whole variety of injustices, which affect all human rights. These injustices will probably be exacerbated by the crisis, on one hand because of deteriorating conditions and on the other due to weakening of social security policies and measures against growing inequalities.   Therefore, our problem is twofold: to develop strategies and policies of a green transition to decarbonised manufacturing, agriculture, and transport; and to do it in a way which not only does not deepen injustices and inequalities but creates conditions for life with dignity for all. In other words, the fundamental change of human relation to nature should be accompanied by a similarly fundamental change in social relationships.
Western Collusion in Undermining the Rule of Law in Bosnia and Herzegovina: An Overview

Western Collusion in Undermining the Rule of Law in Bosnia and Herzegovina:

Published: 5 August 2021
Policy paper
Three legal cases/political scandals during 2018-19 grabbed the attention of the domestic public and the international community in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The first two concerned the unresolved deaths of two young men, Dženan Memić in Sarajevo and David Dragičević in Banja Luka. The improper investigative conduct of the police and judiciary regarding their deaths raised suspicions of cover-ups and political interference. The third concerned corruption allegations against Milan Tegeltija, then president of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HJPC), the BiH judiciary’s self-managing body. The three cases marked the nadir of a steady decline of the rule of law institutions in BiH over the last decade and a half, and stand in stark contrast to 2005 when BiH was a frontrunner among Western Balkan countries aspiring to European Union (EU) membership. Rule of law achievements until then had been the result of substantial and systematic judicial and (to a lesser degree) police reform carried out during the immediate post-war period under the leadership of the international community.
BEYOND NON-PAPERS_WesternBalkans6StrategyGroup

BEYOND NON-PAPERS

Published: 15 July 2021
Policy brief
For the past three decades, Western Balkan countries have been going through a dynamic period of consolidation of new states, economic transition and transformation of social values. This process of regional and internal consolidation is unfinished and the legacy of conflict is still powerful; yet the outlook of EU accession is the one positive project offering a perspective to societies and economies while settling the wounds of the past.