With the pandemic and online lessons, it turned out that many families in North Macedonia do not own and cannot afford a computer, but someone had already noticed and started to do something about it
"Croatia is aging, this is the message that the census will give us. But this will not alarm the government which, like a firefighter, is just going to put out the fires". On the day of the start of the general census in Croatia, we interviewed demographer Marin Strmota
"It makes no sense for civil society to spend time helping the state devise a strategy that will never be applied. In a country where the rule of law does not exist, there is no point in adopting new laws and strategies". A meeting with Maja Stojanovic, director of Građanske inicijative
The general census is scheduled for Croatia from mid-September to mid-October. A campaign by the far right is underway these days to intimidate the Serbian minority. Depopulation is also in the spotlight
Created in partnership between the Google News Initiative (GNI), German media innovation hub Media Lab Bayern, and the European Journalism Centre (EJC), the GNI Startups Lab Europe supports high-quality reporting for local communities, single-topic audiences and/or previously underserved communities. Deadline 20 September
Interview with Milka Tadic Mijovic, one of Montenegro's leading journalists and president of the Center for Investigative Journalism, who has always been at the forefront of the fight for a better country and for the defence of freedom of expression
Environmental battles in peripheral areas in Serbia are little known and little studied. Activists and citizens encounter many difficulties in mobilising. Interview with social researchers Jelisaveta Petrovic and Jelena Pesic from the University of Belgrade
School, the world of work, personal freedoms: young people in Serbia have not been at the centre of the priorities of the institutions in Serbia in this pandemic period – nor were they before
After a long experience in the NGO sector, Jovana Marovic decided to engage in politics with the URA movement. In this interview, she tells us about her choice and her vision on Montenegro's European integration path
The CASE coalition of which OBCT is part has received the text that will be presented to the European Parliament next Monday: a commitment to defend the rule of law and public participation, which collects many suggestions and proposals from civil society organisations
What is the attitude of Croatia and the European Union towards migrants and refugees trapped at the external borders of the EU? Massimo Moratti, deputy director of Amnesty International’s office for Europe, explains in detail
In many territories on the border between Italy and Slovenia, a climate of integration had finally been reached, but the measures introduced to limit the pandemic have changed everything. Neither Rome nor Ljubljana worried that much, but some, with creativity, "took the field" in favour of the complexity, interests, and relationships of cross-border areas
A historic verdict by the Administrative Court of Zagreb grants same-sex couples the right to adopt. The progress, however, was immediately undermined by the Ministry of the Family, which announced an appeal
Bayram Mammadov was a young Azerbaijani activist who was unjustly imprisoned in 2016 and then released on presidential amnesty. Since 2020 he had been in Istanbul for his studies. On May 2 he was found dead in the Turkish city. His story
Civil society, academia, citizens of the Balkan region, the EU and the United States have written a letter addressed to their respective governments to denounce and prevent the ethno-nationalist drift that seems to be increasingly taking place in the Western Balkans, of which the recent "non-papers" are a striking example
North Macedonia is set to protect some of its main mountain ranges, such as Shar, Osogovo and Vodno, which are now increasingly threatened by exploitation of soil, water, and forests
Last April 10, thousands of citizens took to the streets of Belgrade for what has been called the "Ecological Revolt". The environmental issue was brought to the political level. Will the opposition be able to intercept this civic momentum?
An attempt is underway in Serbia to discredit civil society. Serious and heavy attacks against some Serbian non-governmental organisations came from the parliament benches, in particular from Aleksandar Martinovic, leader of the Serbian Progressive Party
Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot wait any longer. It must embrace the constitution, which can no longer be just an "annex" to the Dayton Peace Accords. The opinion of the jurist Jens Woelk
Women are not only victims of conflict, but also of gender discrimination, exacerbated by war. We talked about it with peace activists from Armenia and Azerbaijan
For 45 days students and academics at Istanbul’s prestigious university Boğaziçi have protested the appointment of new rector Melih Bulu, a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)
Since the beginning of January, students and faculty of the University of Boğaziçi in Istanbul, one of the most prestigious in the country, have contested the irregular appointment of the new rector by decree of President Erdoğan himself. An interview
The application of the readmission agreement between Italy and Slovenia is illegitimate. This was confirmed by the Court of Rome, that accepted the appeal of a Pakistani citizen who had arrived in Trieste via the Balkan route and was then pushed back to Slovenia and then Bosnia and Herzegovina
2021 for North Macedonia should be the year of the new general census, after the failure of 2011. However, many issues remain unresolved: the inclusion of emigrants and the delicate topic of ethnic balance are of particular concern
Starting from those moments of precipitous flight towards the Neretva, the first long feature directed by Daniele Babbo shows both the love for a city and how hard it is to live in it. An interview
Recently, on 5 November, UN human rights experts called on the Bosnian government to investigate a smear campaign and death threats against a woman human rights defender working for the rights of refugees and migrants
The possible destruction of almost 35 hectares of forest and green areas of "Košutnjak", a protected natural asset regarded by many as the "lung of Belgrade", has given way to a new environmental battle in the Serbian capital
The research project “Transnational Political Contention in Europe (TraPoCo)”, supported by the European Commission and dedicated to the study of trans-European political activism, is underway. The focus will be on the role of movements, non-governmental organisations, activists, and trade unions in strenghtening the space of rights and democracy in Europe
