The Balkans Today

Twitter in Serbia on Monday was awash with comments about satirist Luka Maksimovic, alias Ljubisa Preletacevic-Beli, who handed the Republic Election Commission his 12,640 signatures of support on Sunday evening for his candidacy in the upcoming presidential election, only for it to be put into question because of the lack of the prefix “group of citizens" ahead of his party’s name, "Beli Just Strong", on the official documents.

 

The commission is due to decide on the legitimacy of Beli’s application at 11am today.

 

For more updates on Serbia's 2017 presidential elections, follow our coverage here.

 

The Serbian Council for National Security concluded at today’s session that the country is stable and that there is no possibility of a significant threat to peace and security in its territory, however, it noted that the situation in the region as a whole is turbulent and complex.

 

According to the press release from the Serbian President’s Office after the meeting, Serbia invested effort to preserve peace and stability in the Balkans, “however, without our influence, there is a risk of spreading political conflicts within individual countries in the region, which are encouraged, both by domestic political reasons of intolerance, as well as a significant interference of foreign civilian and military intelligence services.”

 

The president’s office added that Serbia won’t let any spill-over of political or other conflicts in its territory, and will respect the independence of other countries, with no interference in their internal affairs.

 

During the council’s session, it called on Serbian authorities to collaborate with Serbs throughout the region, and expressed concern over the initiatives to stop the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, as well as over the demand for the formation a regular army in Kosovo.

Romania’s government announced on Tuesday that it will investigate the working conditions and allegations of abuse on 7.500 Romanian women working in Italy’s southern region of Catania.

 

The Observer published an investigation on Monday alleging that Romanian women working in agriculture in Sicily’s Catania region are kept in inhuman conditions and sometimes are also forced to have sexual relations with the employers.

 

Minister for Romanians Abroad Andreea Pastirnac told journalists today that she will also travel to the region tomorrow to investigate the matter.

 

According to several organizations fighting against human trafficking, Catania is known for the poor working conditions and abuses of migrant workers. In 2015, a report of the Global Alliance Against Human Trafficking showed that after Romania joined the European Union, Italian employers gave up bringing Tunisian workers and preferred to employ Romanians. The report also read that up to 12.000 people work in Sicily’s farms, in average 12 hours per day. They earn no more than 20 euros per day.

 

A Balkan Insight an investigation in November looked at how large numbers of Romanians seeking work in the rich western half of the EU find themselves as the mercy of unscrupulous traffickers.  The US State Department’s most recent report on “Trafficking in Persons” said: “Romanians represent a significant source of sex and labor trafficking victims throughout Europe.”

 

Romanian men, women, and children are subjected to trafficking in agriculture, construction, domestic service, hospitality and manufacturing, as well as forced begging and theft.

Croatian media reported on Thursday that the management of the country’s biggest company, Agrokor, needs to come to a solution to its worsening financial troubles by Friday, before the new estimate on its credit rating is made by Moody’s credit ranking agency.

On Tuesday, the Croatian government admitted that a meeting had taken place between its representatives and Agrokor’s owner, Ivica Todoric, over the company’s worsening financial troubles.

 

 

 

The Appeals Court in the Macedonian Capital Skopje, Thursday, has confirmed the arrest warrant for the businessman and media magnate Sead Kocan - an ally of ex-PM Nikola Gruevski.
 

The Appeals Court partially approved the complaint by Kocan's defense but ruled out not to withdraw the arrest warrant, on account that he could escape.
 

The Criminal Court, has ordered the arrest and detention of Kocan in March 10 - on suspicion of falsifying documents to win a big coal extraction tender. Since then Kocan has been at large.

Turkey could send 15,000 refugees to Europe to shock Europeans, Turkish interior minister Suleyman Soylu said on Friday.

 

His statement comes following a recent diplomatic crisis between Ankara and Germany and the Netherlands, fueled by the latter's ban on allowing Turkish ministers to stage rallies there.

 

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic announced on Friday that the Government of Serbia has adopted a decision which annuls Pristina's decree on taking over Serbian property in Kosovo.

 

Speaking to media, Vucic said that the Serbian authorities’ decision is similar to the one it made in October 2016 in the Trepca case, when Serbia decided to ignore the Kosovo government’s decision to put the once-important mining complex in Kosovo under its own control, despite an ongoing dispute with Serbia over ownership and rights.

 

Vucic also said it was clear that, since the start of the negotiations in Brussels, Pristina would pull such a move and that it refused to talk about the disputed assets in the dialogue.

 

"Therefore, the move of Pristina, which is nothing else then robbery of other people's property, we consider null and void," he said.