BELGRADE, Serbia—Tens of thousands of Serbians have taken to the streets in recent days to protest the victory of current Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic in the country’s presidential election on April 2. The demonstrations also reflect widespread economic and political dissatisfaction as well as divisions in the country, and present a challenge to the European Union’s approach to the Western Balkans. Brussels is increasingly seen in some quarters as promoting stability over deep reform in the combustible region, allowing strongmen to erode democracy and independent institutions. Protesters returned to central Belgrade on April 18 following a brief lull over Easter, [...]
Editor’s Note: This is the first in an ongoing WPR series about NATO members’ contributions to and relationships with the alliance. In February, a battalion of 1,000 NATO soldiers arrived in Lithuania, the first of a series of deployments in Eastern Europe that come as a response to the threat posed by Russia. According to Reuters, the battalion is led by Germany and also includes soldiers from Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and Luxembourg. In an email interview, Agnia Grigas, nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council and the author of books including “Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire,” discusses Lithuania’s [...]
Bulgaria may have had three parliamentary elections in four years, but there is little sense of change in the air. After the latest vote on March 26, the next government seems set to be another unstable coalition patching together various egos, business interests and veneers of political philosophies. While EU wannabes Serbia and Macedonia continue to attract criticism and scrutiny for weighing Western and Russian interests against each other, member state Bulgaria will continue its own balancing act. Perhaps the biggest change after last month’s election is that tentatively reformist parties are now shut out of parliament, while the mainstream [...]
