Тиха вода брег рони

"As a future NATO member and as a country that is very close to EU membership, Croatia will give full support to its neighbours"

Ivo Sanader, Croatian Prime Minister

Last week, in a rather brief statement, Croatia's Prime Minister effectively pledged to support Serbia's bid to join the European Union and other European institutions. Given the bitter and turbulent relationship between Croatia and Serbia over the past couple of decades this extension of a friendly hand towards the latter was, for many, surprising. There is a lot that has been dividing the two countries: the bitter memory of the war of Croatia's independence, the mass exodus of the Serbs of the Krajina, the still outstanding suit -originally filed by Croatia in 1999 - against Serbia for genocide before the International Court of Justice and the public disapproval within Serbia of Croatia's recognition of the independence of Kosovo in 2008.

And although Croatia's own EU bid has been delayed over a border dispute with Slovenia, just as Serbia's application is on hold until it arrests Ratko Mladic, indicted for genocide by the U.N. war crimes court, the gesture is of high symbolic value. As Sanader said the two countries should not "forget the past but not continue to live in it."

As an old Serbian proverb goes - Тиха вода брег рони - it is the quiet water that wears down the shore. It is the quiet, painstaking policy of normalization and reconciliation that will break down the walls that separate the peoples of former Yugoslavia.

Spyros Sofos: Bulgaria’s Blackmail is Unfair

INTERVIEW 13.09.23 19 ПРЕГЛЕДИ At a time when Macedonia is under strong international pressure concerning the constitutional changes, and the region is waiting to see whether it will be coupled to the European locomotive, external views become a dire need for the country to position itself on the right coordinates during the geopolitical developments that will not leave us unaffected. After the interview with the German journalist and specialist on the Balkans Michael Martens, we present to you another conversation, this time with Spyros Sofos, whose research at the London School of Economics and Political Science has focused, among other things, on social insecurity, identity and collective action, as well as populism in Southeast Europe. He says that Bulgarian elites playing the nationalist card poses the...

The Greek-Macedonian dispute – time to return to the drawing board? | Transform, Transcend, Translate | TransConflict Serbia

Premised on the view that facilitating a compromise between the respective parties to the name issue requires a better understanding of the multi-layered character of the dispute, the historically conditioned perspectives of the parties, and the main actors and their perceived interests, my article in Transconflict attempts to suggest a way forward. After almost two decades since Macedonia declared its independence, one of the major obstacles to Macedonian aspirations of integration into Europe remains the notorious ‘name dispute’ between Macedonia and Greece. The most frequently rehearsed rendition of this stresses that Greece is concerned about the use of the name ‘Macedonia’ constituting an act of usurpation of its history and a misnomer for irredentist plans to bring about a Greater Macedonia at its expense. On the other hand, Macedonians argue that this is the name in which the majority of the young republic recognize themselves, their language, their land and their ...

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