So, Montenegro.
Little mountainous state on the Adriatic. Six hundred thousand people, mostly Montenegrins, a few Albanians and whatnot. Was an independent country until 1919, when it got swept up into Yugoslavia. Now it’s part of the “Federal Union of Serbia and Montenegro”, which consists of (1) Serbia, and (2) Montenegro.
And [...]

Andrew Brown points us to an illuminating article by Bernard Nežmah on swearing in Serbian. Though the article is five years old, I daresay its theme is timeless.
According to Nežmah’s piece — published in Central Europe Review or, as we must now call it, Transitions Online — the Serbian language is blessed with a dazzling, [...]

Things are looking up a bit for Serbia’s economy.
The 1990s were a lost decade for Serbia. GDP declined sharply in the first half of the decade. A modest recovery in 1995-8 was wiped out by the NATO bombing. Per capita income in 2000 was just about where it had been in 1989… [...]

It’s just three weeks since I wrote this entry about the prospects for EU expansion in the Western Balkans. And in that short time, several of my predictions have been proven wrong.
– Croatia’s has been allowed to start negotiations for candidacy.
– Serbia has been allowed to start negotiations for a Stabilization and Association Pact.
– [...]

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David Weman
A [...]

Taking a break from the German elections, I ran across this recent article over at Radio Free Europe. Short version: EU accession for the Western Balkans (Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia and Albania) is stalling.
All of these five states would like to be part of the EU, but — with the partial exception of Croatia [...]

Today is the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. AP quotes the commander of EU peacekeepers in Bosnia saying “the net is closing in” on the two men responsible for the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.
Nice, except that’s followed up by the dumbest quote I’ve seen this morning (it’s early yet): [...]

Laura Rozen thinks that the broadcast of a graphic video from the massacre at Srebrenica may mark a tipping point in Serbian public opinion and pave the way for the arrest of Ratko Mladic and his extradition to The Hague.
She quotes an international justice listserv:
B92’s Danijel Bukomirovic, speaking in Dutch on NOS Journaal at 20:00 [...]