Southeast Europe

The year 1968 brought discomfort as well as inspiration to Yugoslavia. It was difficult to face something as ambivalent.

The 7th European History Forum took place in May 2018 at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin. Speakers and guests from Germany, Eastern and Southeastern European countries discussed likenesses and differences according their respective historical classification of the events of the year 1968.

Montenegro has exited its latest regular election cycle in a state of emergency of sorts, with many questions that will continue to divide its society, deepen the existing political crisis and burden the challenging reforms induced by the process of the state’s democratization and Europeanization.

2012 was a special year in terms of publicity of LGBTI community and LGBTI movement in all three South Caucasian countries. Several important steps have been made towards raising acute issues about sexual identity, differences/diversity and social constructs in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia.

It was the second visit of Hillary Clinton in Bosnia and Herzegovina without any positive outcome. Unfortunately, the situation will surely deteriorate further and chances for helping the country to become a really functioning and democratic state will grow smaller

The release of 65-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner and Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from detention overjoyed most of the Burmese people inside and outside Burma. She is freed unconditionally, but it still remains unclear about the expectation of the government over her role in Burma politics.

In May 2010, the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation and the Democratization Policy Council organized a policy roundtable in Berlin: “How to stop Bosnia and Herzegovina from further deteriorating? Time for a new transatlantic initiative”. The expert meeting brought together policy makers and analysts from Europe and America, including representatives from international organizations in Bosnia, with their counterparts from Germany.

In a globalised world, energy independence can not be achieved. Successful energy policies require inter-sectoral co-operation, supervision, and long-term public policies concerning employment, the environment, and investment.

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s progress is stalling, even reversing. High-level diplomatic efforts are under way to pull the country out of its decline. For the U.S. and EU it is time for a co-ordinated and focused policy. The present haphazard pursuit of self-serving goals will lead to nothing but more damage in Bosnia.

Who could have predicted that the subprime crisis, which exploded in mid-2007 in the U.S., would bring a recession to the Western Balkans in 2009? Especially since we knew that the financial sectors in the Balkan economies did not deal at all with toxic assets – those derivatives connected to subprime mortgages.

The uncertainty inherent in the motto for this conference, organised by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, was clearly shared by the participants on 25th April at the Berlin House of Representatives. At this conference on the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), researchers and EU politicians discussed why there has been so little progress towards its objective of creating a “circle of friendly nations”.