Southeast & Eastern Europe

Montenegro stands at a crossroads: will it normalise exceptional, deal-driven investment practices, or set regional standards for transparent and rule-based development? The EU has a critical opportunity to guide this process.

A new wave of Azerbaijani migration is taking shape in Berlin - politically engaged, largely left-leaning, and critical of both the regime and the opposition back home.

Independent media in the South Caucasus faces pressure, disinformation and funding cuts. Read our latest on the struggles - and resilience - of media in the region.

Civil society in Azerbaijan and Georgia is under profound pressure from authoritarian restrictions and declining Western aid, leaving many NGOs in dormancy. Their resilience hinges on transforming organizational behaviors and resource considerations.

In November 2024, the collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad killed 16 people and sparked a protest wave in Serbia. Despite brutal repression by the regime, a decentralised movement is now demanding accountability and new elections.

The 13th edition of its European History Forum was held under the title: “80 Years of Narratives about the End of the Second World War”. How is the pivotal year 1945 remembered in the countries of Eastern and Southeastern Europe? 

"The only approach we haven't tried is a transitional government tasked with establishing proper electoral conditions, which is why we're proposing it now." – Radomir Lazović and Biljana Đorđević on engagement, resistance, and the future of the Green Left in Serbia.

Anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric has been a central element of the Georgian Dream’s anti-democratic turn towards the far right. How do anti-LGBTQ+ statements and policies help GD expand its grip on power, and why does this strategy work? 

Michael Martens reviews Shkëlzen Gashi's book on 83 massacres during the Kosovo War, documenting crimes by Serbian forces and reprisals. The author's merit is to provide new information about the victims, the perpetrators and the search for justice.  

While Brussels may see the Jadar lithium mining project as a strategic step toward a greener future, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić sees it as a tactical tool to reinforce his grip on power - just as hundreds of thousands rise to reclaim democracy.