southeastern europe

The region north of the river Ibar in the Mitrovica area of Kosovo has been resisting the imposition of Kosovar Albanian control. Its largely Serbian population is quite apprehensive of the extension of Pristina's jurisdiction. UNMIK has stepped in in 2002 to administer northern Mitrovica and provide a crucial liaison between Pristina and the region's Serbs. Gerard Gallucci is arguing in Transconflict that the dismantling of the UNMIK administration there would be disastrous as it would undermine Serbian confidence and create a source of tension and even violence in the region.                                                                                                                                                                                      

The May and June parliamentary elections have returned Greece's openly national socialist and erstwhile marginal party to the parliament. Today 18 members of parliament have been elected under the party banner. Many more seem to share some of the views that have made the party popular; the demonization of immigrants, the assumption that crime is imported, an intense anti-europeanism. There is a lot that needs to be done to analyse and counter such discourses. But the phenomenon of Χρυσή Αυγή (Golden Dawn) is still unexplored beyond the journalistic work that has surrounded it.  Back in November 2011, I was invited to talk in a panel on the extreme right in Europe with Zeev Sternhell and Vassiliki Georgiadou. There I suggested that we need to see how the extreme right engages citizens at the micro level, providing local services that the state or civil society seem not to be able or willing to. At the time, another extreme right party, ΛΑΟΣ, had agreed to participate to a coali

Folgen der Finanzkrise für Griechenland  Die Mauern der Bürokratie müssen fallen   08.10.2011 " Greece is smothered by its bureaucracy. Corruption and nepotism have raised a destructive wall in the midst of the country. Many young people do not have a chance. If this system is not demolished, Greece cannot be saved". Folgen der Finanzkrise für Griechenland  Das alte Land kämpft gegen den Untergang 08.10.2011 "the old Greece is fighting to survive". Excellent analysis of the social and political dynamics unleashed, or rather, revealed by the crisis. Orthodox church appears to be exempt from austerity measures 04.10.2011   Church funds are taboo in Greece. Its income is liable to taxation, but there are two major stumbling blocks. There is no accounting system to detail its actual income and no one really knows quite how much land it owns because there is no land register. This situation suits both the church and the state, "because politicians ar