On March 1, 2021, the 11th meeting of the Stabilisation and Association Council between the EU and Albania took place. This was the first SA Council meeting since their decision to open accession negotiations for Albania in March 2020. While North Macedonia, Albania, Serbia and Montenegro are in the process of integrating EU legislation into national law, Bosnia Herzegovina and Kosovo still lag behind as potential candidates.
On March 31, 1994, José León Ramírez Reina died of heart failure in a hospital in the south of Spain. He was 87. He had previously lived in Madrid and in Seville, where he owned an extravagant villa named La Carlina. He was known for hosting elite parties and storing a rich collection of art there. Ramírez Reina arrived in Spain through what could be described as an unusual channel. After fleeing from Germany across Denmark and Norway, he crashed his plane into the shores of San Sebastian, Spain in May of 1945.
Mostar is famous for its Old Bridge, but also, sadly, for ethnic divisions and a dysfunctional government that hasn’t held elections for 12 years. Now is the time for Mostar to stand up and show that something can be changed. With local elections scheduled for 20 December 2020, one of the 14 priorities for the country’s application for European Union (EU) membership has finally been satisfied.
The departure of young people from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in recent years is one of the most pressing topics, and though talked about often, no solutions are offered. When speaking about leaving Bosnia and Herzegovina, the focus should not only be on young people, but on all generations. The idea that the most educated and capable people are leaving the country is also no longer representative.
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers (SC), adopted by the Kosovo Parliament in 2015, is widely touted as a new, more promising attempt at achieving justice for unpunished war crimes.