Compiled by Eva Jovanova and Hristo Voynov
1. Kosovo continues its trade war with Serbia and Bosnia. Earlier this week, Kosovo did not manage to secure a 2/3 majority by the members of Interpol. As a result, Kosovo’s Prime Minister, Ramush Haradinaj, blamed Serbia’s “vicious campaign” against Kosovo’s attempt to join the organization. At the beginning of November, Haradinaj imposed a ten percent tax on Serbian and Bosnian imports. On Wednesday, he announced that the 10% tax would rise to 100 percent. Trade between Kosovo and Serbia and Bosnia has already halved since the beginning of this month. European Union high officials have criticized the measure from the very beginning, stressing that it is a breach of CEFTA (Central European Free Trade Agreement). Serbian President Vucic announced that he would not retaliate.
2. Czechian PM Andrej Babis’ future as the PM was just given another lifeline as he survived a vote of no confidence initiated over accusations that he kidnapped his own son to prevent him from testifying against him. However, this is not the end of his troubles. The Social Democrats, Babis’ main coalition partners, abstained from the vote, while the observing party of the coalition, the Communist Party, voted in favor of him. However, the reason he survived is that the opposition did not have enough votes to satisfy the 101 seats needed for the no-confidence to be triggered. The Social Democrats were split, as some in the party are against Babis, but their inaction against him will not ensure goodwill between the parties will survive.
3. Macedonia’s ex-Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski, who was a fugitive for the last two weeks, was granted asylum in Hungary. Gruevski claimed that he was fleeing out of fear that he would be assassinated once he would be put in jail. What he really was fleeing from were two years of jail time and more possible convictions in the other four corruption and embezzlement cases. On Tuesday, Macedonia filed an extradition request for him. European Commissioner for Enlargement Johannes Hahn in a Tweet asked Hungary to provide them with clear reasons why they granted Gruevski an asylum status.
4. Poland has officially backed down from its proposed judicial reforms that were accused of being an attempt to limit the independence of the country’s judicial branch. This move was so controversial that the European Union triggered Article 7 as a means of imposing sanctions against Poland for the first time in the union’s history. This is a big victory for the EU, which was able to use its norms to limit the changes it saw as bending the rules to expand the ruling party’s power in a member state. The main loser in this is the V4, specifically Hungary, and not Poland, which willingly backed down. Hungary has framed the debate as one of Brussels trying to limit national sovereignty and infringing on states rights. This has led to closer relations between Poland and Hungary, and it remains to be seen if this decision will hurt Poland’s capitulation to the EU.
5. Montenegro’s failed 2016 coup d’état attempt plot comes closer to revelation. A joint investigation between two investigative websites has allegedly uncovered the identity of the second of the two Russian military agents who are believed to be involved in the coup attempt to assassinate Montenegro’s then Prime Minister (and current President) Milo Djukanovic in order to prevent Montenegro’s NATO accession. The name of the first Russian GRU officer is Eduard Shishmakov, whose engagement in the plot has been confirmed by the Montenegrin prosecution. The second person, who in Interpol’s investigation was listed under the name “Vladimir Popov,” was now identified by the websites as Vladimir Nikolaevich Moiseev. It is still unknown when exactly he was recruited by the GRU (Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate).
6. Russia was highly disappointed in its efforts to get Alexander Prokopchuk, a respected member of its Interior Ministry, elected in the two years term as Interpol’s president. While he was favored to win, he suffered an upset at the hands of his South Korean competitor. Russia accuses the US of using its influence to interfere with the internal vote, while the US and its allies say that Russia abuses the Interpol system to target its enemies as opposed to criminals. This coincides with new charges levied against the controversial US banker, Bill Browder, by Russia. Browder was one of the first major investors to enter Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and claims that Russian authorities targeted him to confiscate his money, while Russia accuses him of corruption and creating a campaign of lies to hide his crimes. He has since been at the center of the US-Russia tensions, most notably because of his advocacy of the Magnitsky sanctions against Russia.
7. Croatia’s Agrokor ex-boss, Ivica Todoric, who was in custody for almost two weeks, was released from detention after he paid one million Euros in bail this Wednesday. Todoric then claimed that he would run in the next elections and “turn Croatia in the right direction.” Todoric founded Agrokor in 1976 and was the company’s owner until he fled Croatia in 2017 to avoid investigations launched against him. The financial review of the Agrokor group, the largest food conglomerate in the Balkans employing over 50.000 people, showed that the company had failed to report its loses from 2015 onwards. The company’s debt now is over €7 billion. This summer, a debt restructuring deal that might save the company was put into effect.
8. Opposition parties in Hungary are pressing for legal repercussions of those in the government connected to the Gruevski asylum scandal. The current ruling party of Hungary, FIDESZ, has presented itself as a fierce defender of its people through a sharp anti-refugee stance, which stands in sharp contrast to the fact that Gruevski was able to gain asylum in the country within days of his application, even though he entered the country illegally and without a passport; a common critique about the majority of asylum seekers in recent years. Párbeszéd, or the Dialogue for Hungary party, requested that the Foreign Minister resign over breaking Hungarian and international laws in helping Gruevski, while the green opposition party, the LMP, called for an investigatory committee into the decision. Meanwhile, FIDESZ-friendly media claimed that Gruevski was unfairly targeted for being against the ‘Soros Plan,’ reframing his actions while he was Macedonia’s Prime Minister into what we now know as the current liberal-illiberal split within the EU.
9. Serbia’s Prime Minister faced sharp critique by The Hague UN war crimes court this Tuesday. Theodor Meron, the UN war crimes court president criticized Ana Brnabic for denying that the Srebrenica massacres constituted genocide in her Deutsche Welle interview earlier this month. Numerous judgments by the ICTY made it clear by sentencing over 45 people that the July 1995 crimes in Srebrenica in which more than 7.000 Bosniak boys and men lost their lives. Meron was disappointed by Brnabic’s interview and suggested that “legal interpretations of international crimes better be left to international criminal tribunals.”
10. The trial of Ukraine’s former President, Viktor Yanukovych, has been postponed because he was hospitalized earlier this week. Since he is currently in Russia, he was set to testify via webcam in order to defend himself, but because of a spinal injury, his testimony has been delayed until December 5th. This comes around the same time as the 5th anniversary of the Euromaidan protest which toppled him. Since then, a significant number of people involved in the state response against the movement have been prosecuted for their actions though Serhiy Horbatiuk, the chief investigator, claims that there is a significant number of people within the Interior Ministry and National Police Force who have been able to avoid punishment. He was unclear as to why that is but hinted at the slow pace set by the courts and their administrative positions.
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