Transitions

Some issues are less visible but more persistent: lack of registration, administrative barriers, poverty, and discrimination. Issues related to statelessness affecting the countries that formerly comprised the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia can map trends that affect wider Europe. These range from generational complications of citizenship status due to shifting borders, to systemic discrimination causing Roma exclusion from official paperwork of their native countries.

Kyrgyzstan’s president rewrites the constitution to give himself more power, crushes his only serious rival, and continues to stifle dissent. By Aidar Raev For a generation, Kyrgyzstan was Central Asia’s “island of democracy,” the one post-Soviet republic where presidents could be toppled by their own people and journalists could still hold to account the powerful. The story now told about the country, in documentaries and freedom indices alike, is one of decline.

The Polish MEP has turned scandal into campaign strategy, with his party edging toward double digits in the polls ahead of the 2027 parliamentary election. From BIRN. In December 2023, as Poland’s parliament, the Sejm, marked the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, Grzegorz Braun strode into the main hall and blasted the candles on the menorah with a fire extinguisher.

As the name-calling between the Czech Republic’s two top statesmen drags on, will the country’s reputation take another hit? A simmering feud between the prime minister and president in the Czech Republic may, just may, have been temporarily patched up ahead of this week’s NATO summit. The issue centers around President Petr Pavel’s attendance at the alliance’s annual gathering in Ankara on 7–8 July as well as who has the authority to decide the question.

On paper, the Sovereignty Protection Office was set up to defend Hungarian national interests. In practice, it attacked activists and journalists who stood up for a more decent and just Hungary. From Telex. On 30 June, the Hungarian Parliament officially dissolved the most harmful state institution in recent Hungarian history.

While Beijing has long called for a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine, its diplomatic efforts to bring peace have yielded no tangible results. That may be by design. As Russia’s war in Ukraine grinds into its fifth summer amid signs that Russian forces are losing ground, global leaders are renewing calls for China to broker an end to the hostilities.

Armenia is at a crossroads, one familiar to anyone who remembers Georgia’s difficult break from Russia’s orbit two decades ago. From OC Media. The first symbolic shipment of Armenian apricots has already arrived in the EU, marking a milestone in Yerevan’s push to diversify its exports and deepen economic ties with Europe – a small but telling sign of the same trajectory Georgia once charted away from Moscow’s orbit. The 2004 Rose Revolution turned Georgia towards the West, but at a hefty price.

Czech public media have held a unique position as independent and highly trusted media for decades. Now proposed funding changes are placing them under threat. It was a mid-May afternoon, and Prague’s Old Town Square was teeming with people. But this time, most of those gathered were not tourists. Instead, most of the several thousands filling the square were carrying drums, pots, wooden spoons, whistles, megaphones, and signs.

Italian journalist Ezio Gavazzeni talks to Transitions about his recent investigation, which has prompted the courts to take action. The rumors and allegations swirling around cases of so-called sniper tourists during the Bosnian War may finally have some clarity soon – more than three decades after the end of the conflict.

A shortage of skilled workers in Slovenia has prompted some businesses to recruit help from abroad. But the arrival of foreign workers presents challenges for locals and newcomers alike. Lenart in the Slovenske Gorice region is a small town in northeastern Slovenia where people know each other by name, and where morning traffic doesn’t just mean minor delays, but brief greetings exchanged along the main road toward Gornja Radgona or Maribor.