What will the Western Balkans look like in 2025? Will we witness Republika Srpska declare independence, a worsening of relations between Kosovo and Serbia, and the rise of ethnic tensions across the region - or will we celebrate Montenegro and Serbia joining the EU, with good reason to hope that the rest of the region will soon follow? BCSP Researcher Isidora Stakic contributed to the paper “Balkan futures - ...

Under the European Commission’s 2018 Western Balkan strategy, candidate countries from the region must resolve bilateral disputes before joining the EU. As it wants to avoid importing conflicts, the EU puts the onus to ensure good neighbourly relations onto the region itself.

{image1}Improving the narratives of the technical dialogue in both Kosovo and Serbia by highlighting impact of the agreements on the everyday lives of the citizens is the goal of the project “Promoting and Communicating Benefits of the Kosovo-Serbia EU Facilitated Dialogue” launched by Kosovo Serbia Policy Advocacy Group (KSPAG). The project foresees a number of communication and outreach activities which will disseminate and promote the benefits of the technical ...

Academic Event at this year’s BSF was dedicated to answering the question how conflict-sensitive is the EU crisis response. Participants concluded that the EU shifted to a more pragmatic approach and improved its crisis response capacities, but that it needs to learn from both successes and failures more quickly. It was agreed that the local has to be included on different levels, but with re-examining what ’local’ means. “The ...

With Gazprom pulling out of Ukraine’s transit network of natural gas in 2019, South – Eastern Europe, a region with high import dependency on Russian gas, must prepare itself for a post- 2019 environment that could challenge the stability of the countries’ security of supply. This is particularly the case for Serbia which imports over 80% of its natural gas from Russia.

{image1} The new normal requires that the EU changes its approach to the Balkans and identifies problems concerning the rule of law and democracy, but also that the Balkans change its approach to the EU, it was concluded at the eight Belgrade Security Forum (BSF) held on 17-19 October 2018. Politicians alone are not going to tackle corruption because of their vested interest in nurturing kleptocratic networks; citizens and ...

Representatives of regional think tanks and activist organizations gathered on April 26 and 27 in Vienna, as part of preparation of the 2018 Western Balkans Summit in London. During two days of intensive meetings and workshops, the regional civil society had an opportunity to influence the London Summit agenda and decisions that will be brought by the Western Balkans and the European officials at the meeting taking place on ...

{image1} It is time for the measures from the Action Plan to be adapted and implemented in practice so that the citizens of Serbia feel the concrete benefits of European integration, it was emphasized at the meeting of the Working Group of the National Convention on the European Union (NCEU) on Chapter 24 and the Negotiating Group on Justice, Freedom and Security Issues Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) ...

{image1} By „researching“ Serbia's participation in the virtual peacekeeping mission, the BCSP provided its contribution to the multinational exercise Viking 18, which was held  16-26. April 2018. The focus of the exercise was on a comprehensive approach to peacebuilding and crisis management, which involves the cooperation of all relevant civil and military actors. Researchers Katarina Djokic, Marija Ignjatijevic and Jelena Pejic represented BCSP at the international exercise, which was ...