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On November 1, 2013, the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies published a new report "YOUR FACE SOUNDS FAMILIAR - On the occasion of the use of public resources in the "cleansing" of northern Kosovo campaign materials for the upcoming local elections in Kosovo and other security challenges and threats in relation to the upcoming local elections in Kosovo.
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Centar za evroatlantske studije je 1. novembra 2013. godine objavio novi izveštaj "TVOJE LICE ZVUČI POZNATO - Povodom upotrebe javnih dobara u akciji "čišćenja" Severa Kosova od izbornog materijala za predstojeće lokalne izbore na Kosovu i drugim bezbednosnim izazovima i pretnjama u vezi sa predstojećim lokalnim izborima na Kosovu.
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Since its promotion to a free royal town in 1291 until the mid-20th century, Bratislava was strongly linked with the German ethnic group. It ware the German guests (hospites theutonici), who were granted extensive privileges from King Andrew III., and so they somehow pre-determined the ethnic picture of the city of Pressburg for several centuries, practically almost until modern times. After 1918, when Germans irretrievably lost their dominance, their representatives liked to use this fact as an argument in order to maintain, or to win, minority rights for their community. The advent of the modern age, industrialisation, migration for employment, different demographic development of various ethnic groups, and, from the late 19th century, increasingly intensive “magyarisation” played a key role in the change of the city’s ethnic composition.
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Dejiny sú jedným z najpozoruhodnejších, ale aj jedným z najkomplikovanejších fenoménov ľudskej existencie. Pochopiť ich priebeh, smerovanie, ale aj ich napĺňanie ľudskou činnosťou nie je jednoduché ani len na pohľad. No i napriek tomu, resp. práve preto, musí historická veda, ktorá dostala do vienka úlohu zmapovať ľudskú spoločnosť v jej vývoji, pozorne sledovať všetky stránky jej života, mapovať ich vzájomné dotyky, ich prelínanie, ich konflikty, aby mohla vo fáze syntézy načrtnúť základné tendencie historického vývoja. A tak potom tzv. „veľké dejiny“ s celoštátnym či celonárodným charakterom prezentujú verejnosti proces, ktorým prešla spoločnosť v skúmanom historickom období. Súčasne ukazujú, čo všetko ho determinovalo a posúvalo do tej či onej polohy a ako sa tento proces javil a javí navonok. To následne umožňuje historikom vysloviť charakteristiku spoločnosti a urobiť súd o výsledkoch svojho poznania. No a v tomto okamihu môže bádateľ odrazu stáť na „tenkom ľade“. Jeho charakteristika, ktorá naozaj platí na široké spoločenstvo, v istom momente stráca svoju platnosť. Stráca ju vlastne vtedy, keď ju chceme mechanicky aplikovať na jednotlivé zložky spoločnosti, na ich vývoj, na ich vlastné „malé“ dejiny.
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Problematika anticiganizmu rastie na význame. Aj povrchnejší pohľad na rôzne štúdie a materiály vytvárané na pôde Európskej únie poukazuje na – nazvime to isté zdesenie, že v európskych spoločnostiach existuje skupina ľudí, ktorých životné podmienky vykazujú vysokú mieru chudoby, nedostatku a núdze. Život v tzv. „osadách“, v situácii biedy, chudoby, negramotnosti, nedostatku hygieny a katastrofálnych podmienok bývania, znamená, že už nečelíme iba problému na úrovni osobnej skúsenosti, ale na úrovni celej spoločnosti. Snahy o ucelené riešenie tejto situácie však opakovane zlyhávajú.
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V uplynulých desaťročiach zaznamenal koncept orientalizmu Edwarda Saida (1978) hlboký transformačný vplyv na celý sektor spoločenských vied a humanitných odborov. Podľa jedného zo základných princípov tohto konceptu novodobá západná (post-koloniálna) veda zaujato interpretuje Východ pohľadom zvonka, keďže v skutočnosti neskúma samotný predmet výskumu, ale svoje vlastné predstavy o ňom. Koncept orienta lizmu bol jednými autormi prijatý nadšene, inými kriticky. Kniha Edwarda Saida však napriek kritike inšpirovala sériu prác o rôznych regiónoch a národoch vrátane prehodnotenia postojov voči menšinám či dokonca voči vlastnému ľudu (Buchowski, 2006: 463 – 482). V tejto súvislosti sa v západnej antropológii za posledných približne 20 rokov uskutočnil určitý druh kolektívnej introspekcie a seba reflexie, ktorý možno obrazne nazvať nemeckým pojmom „Vergangeheitsbewältigung“, koloniálnej minulosti disciplíny a prehodnotenie metód tendenčnej politickej analýzy cudzích kultúr, ich interpretácií a zdôvodňovania (Scheffel, 1993: 21 – 28).
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Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the few complete consociational federal states. Under the „complete“consociational federation I deem the one which contains all or almost all features of the federation and consociational democracy. The ethnic federalism can't be considered as the equivalent of the consociational federation. Other ethnic federations, with the exception of Belgium, could be at best understood as semi-consociational federations. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the federalism is complemented with consociational principles, not only regarding the composition of the institutions, but also, which is particularly important, regarding the methods of decision-making. It is hard to achieve consequent realization of all principles of the federation and consociation. This was the problem which the constitution-maker in Bosnia and Herzegovina had to face with. The general conclusion, drawn after the analysis of the composition, method of election, and method of decision-making of the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is that the principles of consociation dominate over the principles of federation, although this conclusion is not without exceptions.
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Unlike traditional federal studies, contemporary studies in federalism recognize that asymmetrical constitutional solutions are not an anomaly but rather necessity, especially in multi-tiered multinational constitutional systems. Nevertheless, federalism studies also recognize that constitutional asymmetries may reflect on legitimacy and stability of the system. Although lacking a structured and comprehensive analysis, academics in Bosnia and Herzegovina often describe the constitutional design of the country as highly asymmetrical. The aim of this paper is then to provide answers to two questions. Firstly, whether, indeed, the constitutional system of Bosnia and Herzegovina is (highly) asymmetrical. And secondly, whether this produces specific effects on the legitimacy and stability of the system.
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Political axiology of Republicans has been continuously depreciated in post-Dayton political process. This process has been created and regulated by ethnocratic political representatives in accordance with their absolutist and monocratic ideology. The flawed Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina is an outcome of the extorted peace agreement, that allows ethnocratic elites to achieve a hegemonic position and obtain incontrovertible political power. Thus, it is almost impossible to speak about democratic or legitimate nature of the Constitution, since it has not been created, proposed and adopted in accordance with normative rules of democratic procedure. Considering that several institutional opportunities for constitutional changes – that evidently were not a priority for ethnocratic political actors - have been exhausted, noninstitutional political activities and referendum democracy seem a rational choice and solution for designing, proposing and implementing constitutional changes in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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Është e njohur që pas kryqëzatës (një mijë e dyqind e trenjë mijë e dyqind e katër) sundoi në vendin e Shqipërisë së sotme trubullirë që keqësohej nga kontraditat midis grekëve, sllavëve, anzhuinëve dhe në disa qytete të fuqishme italiane që përbënin një faktor të fuqishëm ekonomik në tokën dhe bregdetin e Ilirisë. Kjo gjëndje që kishte dobësuar akoma më shumë sundimin qëndror të Kostadinopojës lehtësonte për hapjen e popullatës shqiptare drejt jugut.
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Emigracioni shqiptar në Francë është një nga emigracionet e hershme pas atij në Greqi (që në kohën bizantine), në Itali, para dhe pas historisë legjendare të Skënderbeut, ose në kryeqytetin e perandorisë otomane, në Stamboll pas pushtimit të Shqipërisë nga kjo perandori. Gjurmët e para të këtij emigracioni i gjejmë në historinë e shënuar të stratiotëve shqiptarë në fundin e shekullit XV dhe gjatë shekullit XVI, epokë kur ata, të nisur nga Durrësi, Shkodra dhe veçanërisht nga Morea e Greqisë, (nga ku morrën dhe emrin stratiotë), u dyndën drejt Italisë e më pas drejt Francës. Qindra e mijra stratiotë, pasi u shquan në luftërat midis principatave dhe mbretërive të vogla italiane, veçanër-isht nën flamurin e Republikës së Shën Markut, “Serenissima”-s, Venedikut, u vunë në shërbim të mbretërve të Francës, duke krijuar kështu valën e parë të emigracionit shqip-tar në Francë.
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Turkey’s path to membership in the European Union (EU) is full of many obstacles. The history of relations between Turkey and the EU is long and full of twists and turns. The subject of Turkey’s membership also triggers mechanisms of public debate that have been formed in the course of the countries’ past experiences. Over the centuries, Europeans formed an identity in which the Ottoman Empire, in the face of the Turks, was opposed to a different people. Hence the psychological barrier for an 80 million Muslim nation with an authoritarian presidential rule and a much lower standard of living with increasing hyperinflation. That is why the accession of Turkey to the EU will shake the European integration and in particular its Christian basis. At the end of October 2023, an interim report on the progress of Turkey’s negotiations towards joining the European Union is expected to be published.
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Since 2011, Türkiye officially hosts around four million refugees. On March 18 2016, the European Council and Türkiye signed the European Union (EU)-Türkiye Statement aimed at stemming the influx of irregular migration via Türkiye to the EU. The aim of the study is to examine the financial support program developed within the scope of the EU-Türkiye Statement, which focuses on managing irregular migration and financial aid. The Facility for Refugees, a main component of the EU-Türkiye Statement, consists of an EU budget of €3 billion and EU Member States contributions of €3 billion. More than 100 projects have been implemented in Türkiye with the funds provided under the Facility. In the study, financial aid will be evaluated in terms of humanitarian and development actions.
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Ukraine is a linguistically diverse country, with Ukrainian and Russian being the two most widely spoken languages. It has a long history of linguistic and cultural differences, with the western parts generally being more Ukrainian-speaking and the eastern parts having a significant Russian-speaking population. The language policies adopted by the government have sometimes been a source of tension. In 2012, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law making Ukrainian the sole official language in government and education. This sparked protests and concerns among Russian-speaking communities, particularly in regions where Russian is more commonly spoken. The conflict has also impacted the use of language in political discourse. Ukrainian officials and politicians have used Ukrainian as a way to assert their patriotism and loyalty, while Russian officials and propaganda have portrayed the conflict as a fight for the rights of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine.
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This introductory chapter on city triangles in South Eastern Europe discusses how, despite the legacy and consequences of the Balkan wars of the 1990s, these cities managed to formalize their contacts in order to resolve their common problems and to remain home to ethnically diverse and recently divided populations. These city triangles handled relatively soft issues like cultural and sporting events, while also tackling issues like business development and questions of water supply. Their attempts at regional cooperation and diplomacy fluctuated in intensity, as political instability in the aftermath of the war often was an impediment to accomplishing much change. Local leaders had to find their local counterparts across what had most recently been a hostile border, while also seeking allies at the national level, more often than not a source of obstruction on the part of politicians and the central bureaucracy. Upon signing the Agreement on Interethnic Tolerance, local leaders were obliged to consider the prospects for concrete cooperation with one another. The struggle to develop, implement and reestablish diplomacy, trade and cooperation indicates that the process of cooperation is as important as the results, whereby citizens come to realize that it is possible to return to peaceful coexistence. The backbone of this effort has been the work of NGOs and a few particularly dedicated individuals to reestablish and continue the ties broken by war between regional cities of the former Yugoslavia. Designed to allow NGOs in member cities to maintain cooperation, even if political circumstances may prevent the respective city administrations from doing so, these triangles have been important channels for keeping communication open and achieving their goals as the nearest opportunity. The first triangle established among Baja, Osijek, and Sombor in 1999 has since been the model for more cooperation among cities in the greater region. Far from their respective capitals, these border cities often have suffered from a dramatic economic decline due to the newly-erected borders and barriers to trade and dialogue and solving common problems like fire protection, waste disposal, water supply, minority rights, or promoting tourism and local economic development. Sustained so far by ambitions to join the European Union and supported under the Instruments of Pre-Accession (IPA), the future for city triangle diplomacy is bright, so long as the incentives remain to forget the hostilities of the past.
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The towns of Tuzla (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Osijek (Croatia), and Novi Sad (Serbia) belong to a common geographic, economic, and cultural area. As part of Yugoslavia, they enjoyed a high level of cooperation in all fields. With the collapse of Yugoslavia and the wars waged in the region, cooperation and communication among the towns ceased. Regional NGOs—the Center for Regionalism of Novi Sad, partner organizations from Tuzla, and the Center for Peace, Non-Violence, and Human Rights from Osijek—made efforts in the late 1990s and early 2000s to restore cooperation among the three towns. These efforts bore fruit, and on January 21, 2002 in Tuzla, the three mayors and directors of three NGOs from each town took part in a ceremony, signing the Agreement on Interethnic Tolerance. This agreement became the basis for the renewal of cooperation among the three municipalities. The values of the agreement were operationalized in a range of joint efforts in areas of economics and business, ecology, information and technology, sports, and education, among others. The restored cooperation among the three towns has made significant contributions to overcoming deep, postwar psychological barriers. It became a model on the basis of which new triangles or circles of cooperation of towns would later be formed, leading to the formalization of the Association of Multiethnic Cities of South Eastern Europe–Philia.
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Bajina Bašta, a municipality in Serbia, and Srebrenica, a municipality in Bosnia and Herzegovina, are divided, or linked, by the Drina River. Cooperation between these two municipalities while part of the former Yugoslav federation was extremely good, including a high level of interaction in economic areas. During the wars of the 1990s, an estimated 7,000 civilians were massacred in a few days in July 1995 in Srebrenica. A site of one of the greatest crimes against humanity since the Second World War, the town became a symbol of suffering. Srebrenica was in fact shelled from the territory of Bajina Bašta municipality—more precisely, from the slopes of Mount Tara in Serbia. Thus, many in Srebrencia have resisted renewing cooperation with their neighbors after the cessation of the war. However, seeking to overcome recent tragedies, local civic organizations took the lead in rebuilding ties. In 2005, upon the initiative of Agora, an NGO from Bajina Bašta, and the Center for Regionalism, from Novi Sad, representatives of the two municipalities—including local officials and NGOs—signed an Agreement on Interethnic Tolerance. This agreement served as the basis for reestablishing intermunicipal cooperation in a range of areas, based on principles of tolerance and trust. Among the most important cross-border initiatives has been the creation of a Cross-border Development Agency, which has built strong economic links between the two municipalities as well as with neighboring municipalities on both sides of the Drina River. The renewal of economic cooperation has been a crucial step in dismantling rigid barriers that were created during the war.
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This chapter presents intermunicipal cooperation among the cities of Sombor, located in Vojvodina, northern Serbia, Baja, in southwestern Hungary, and Osijek, in western Croatia. Despite political divisions, these cities have shared a long and common history, which has been shaped dramatically during the last century. Despite being located in different countries, cross-border engagement continued throughout the socialist period. At certain points, central governments pro-actively established mechanisms to support inter-city cooperation, with the aims to promote peaceful relations between neighbors, manage common resources, and enhance “socialist development” and partnership. However, with the collapse of Yugoslavia and socialist regime in Hungary, the onset of war, the hardening of ethno-national divisions, and new political borders, tensions in the region became rife. War broke out between Serbia and Croatia, and thousands of refugees flooded into Hungary. Meanwhile, the situation of the large ethnic Hungarian minority in northern Serbia of Vojvodina became a politically sensitive issue that influenced Hungary’s stance towards Yugoslavia’s demise. Rebuilding communication has been a fraught process that has depended on a range of factors, including the courage of a number of individuals and the active participation of local citizens in shaping their local governments’ policies and stances. Additionally, the Center for Regionalism and Philia played an important role in channeling the “good will” of citizens and municipal leaders into concrete actions and mechanisms. The Agreement on Interethnic Tolerance provided a framework and atmosphere that allowed for and accelerated concrete cooperation between Baja and Sombor. Sombor and Osijek, as founding members of Philia, were among the first cities in the wider South Eastern European region to initiate and rebuild cross-border cooperation. Despite a recent history of war and the different interests of their national governments, these cities have worked together to build infrastructure, engage in cultural exchanges, facilitate economic development, and promote democratic governance in their shared region.
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The South Adriatic region exemplifies the difficulties that national and local governments and local communities have faced in overcoming the effects of the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the violence that characterized much of the 1990s. This chapter presents the initiative to establish a triangle of cooperation among the neighboring cities of Dubrovnik in southern Croatia, Trebinje in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Herceg Novi in Montenegro. The region in which these cities are located is one that is ethnically or denominationally diverse. However, the cities in these regions share not only a recent past, but also common infrastructure, public services, and natural resources. New borders since the dissolution of Yugoslavia have created immense obstacles for local populations, in terms of visiting relatives, traveling to work, accessing schools and employment, and managing shared resources like water. While Dubrovnik, Trebinje, and Herceg Novi differ in numerous ways, such as in terms of economic indicators and their population size, they continue to be interdependent. For local governments, the effective management of issues like water management, tourism, waste disposal and fire protection depended upon intermunicipal agreement. In 2001, at its fourth session held in Dubrovnik in October, the Igman Initiative, launched an effort to establish a new triangle of cooperation among these cities. The idea was to rebuild cooperation among local authorities, enterprises, and communities that continued to suffer as a result of the recent was in their region. While there was interest and demand in these cities to cooperate, their particular set of challenges surpassed the capacities of local government and NGOs. Cooperation in the region has necessitated the role of central governments. That is, one particularly important aspect of intermunicipal cooperation in this interconnected region was the need to work with central governments on issues like responding to fires and managing scare water resources. The Center for Regionalism, the Igman Initiative, and Philia have played a pivotal role in improving intermunicipal cooperation in this region.
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This last chapter provides an overview of a three-year-long project of the Fund for an Open Society–Serbia to develop and reach a morally-sustainable and ethno-culturally sensitive model of governance in multiethnic local communities in Serbia. It was implemented by three different local self-governments (Senta, Sombor, and Zrenjanin) in Vojvodina, in cooperation with the Center for Regionalism from Novi Sad and a group of experts engaged to assist with the project. The project began with an in-depth analysis of the existing status of local minority policies. The results were later the subjects of public discussions held in each local community. This was followed by a number of activities aimed at developing the capacities of local authorities and minority institutions and organizations for the creation and implementation of minority policies at the local level by means of education (round tables, consultations, organized trainings, and study tours). The target groups of these activities were the elected and appointed representatives of local, regional, and central administrative authorities, representatives of local minority institutions and NGOs, cultural and educational institutions, the media, etc. At the same time, various activities were undertaken in order to establish good models for minority policies in local communities. In this respect, the concrete problems and existing needs in given local communities first were defined, followed by the planned creation of the most adequate and optimal solutions, which had to observe the legal framework, interests, and needs of each particular minority community, as well as realistic possibilities for the local community concerned. Finally, the initiatives were defined, along with the manners of their articulation (models, procedures, system, etc.), which was followed by the implementation of the initiatives as one of the ways of resolving the problems.
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