The ongoing war that Israel is waging in Gaza against Hamas is one of the most consequential conflicts with serious political implications worldwide. The Gaza conflict has already diverted the world’s attention from what has been the most dominant international conflict in the past year and a half: the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The concept of collective memory is a grappling one. The Western Balkans went through political turmoil and wars in the 1990s, and the effects can be felt even today, after more than 20 years. It is understandable for war veterans and civilians who have lived through atrocities of wars to be haunted by remnants of the past, but how do we explain younger generations being emotionally attached to those times as if they were present or old enough to remember them?

The attitude of the right towards women’s rights has evidently undergone an evolution. In has remained misogynistic in essence, but with one important difference: right-wing politics has acquired the ability to mimic modern society. Today, it does not hold a banner containing the explicit message “No to women’s right to vote!”, but rather a shiny paper that guarantees every woman the right to her dignity, albeit defined in right-wing terms. Also, right-wing politics is making some effort to make room for women’s right to health care on its agenda, except that the disaffected will notice that, in its vocabulary, the term health is mostly reduced to reproductive health.

In the territory of former Yugoslavia, the past is still one of the most contentious topics despite the fact that more than 20 years have passed since the conflict ended. The question of how to deal with past crimes and human rights violations tends to open up a wide range of legal, political and psychological issues.

The National Convention on the European Union condemns the malicious and organised tabloid campaign to which the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP), Igor Bandović, and Bojan Elek, director and deputy director of this organisation, are exposed.

The chapter analyses the emergence and development of discriminatory narratives against the LGBTQ+ community in Serbia, and how cyberspace has provided them fertile ground, affecting the rights of LGBTQ+ people both online and offline. Using the example of EuroPride, which took place in Belgrade in 2022, it is demonstrated how digital spaces are being used as mobilizing tools by various anti-rights movements in Serbia.

The Belgrade Centre for Security Policy categorically rejects and denies the falsehoods that were first published on the internet portal "Alo" on Saturday, October 21st, 2023, and then picked up by other pro-government media. This is a dirty campaign with the aim of discrediting the organisation and its executives, and the BCSP will seek protection in court proceedings.

The aim of this study is to analyse the political debate surrounding the Jadar Project. It will present the development of the debate, the key actors, and the dominant discourses that formulated it.

Turkey’s more assertive posture towards the Balkans is neglected compared to the commentariat that deals with Russia and China. To fill this policy gap, the research team of the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) has conducted research based on the analysis of secondary source material and, even more importantly, on fieldwork interviews that involved 16 sources, academics and think tank researchers based in Istanbul and Ankara.