Municipal elections took place in Yerevan on 31 May, "a local election driven by a national agenda". Amidst claims of widespread fraud and intimidation, opposition leader and former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan called for protests
The road to EU membership, promised to the Western Balkans in Thessaloniki, is becoming longer and less certain. It is high time for a "Thessaloniki 2", a new summit to consolidate the European perspective of the region
Osservatorio met Cristian Tudor Popescu, a well-known Romanian journalist and political analyst, to talk about the media, freedom of expression and the forthcoming presidential elections
The recently elected parliament failed twice to elect a president. The situation throws the Republic of Moldova into new parliamentary elections, as the parliament is constitutionally obliged to dissolve after the second failure to elect a president
Macedonia is almost the last country in Eastern Europe, together with Albania, to pass legislation on lustration. Under the law's provisions, practically every public officeholder will have to swear they had not worked for the secret services
In 1989, Fatos Lubonja was in jail serving time as a political prisoner. It was there that he received the first news of what was going on in Eastern Europe. In the beginning, it seemed as if what was going on would not have any impact in Albania. An interview
"We have not managed to deal with the legacy of communism in a clear way and this is not only a source of confusion, but also of frustration". The events of 1989, an ambiguous revolution, the Romanians and Europe. An interview with Mircea Vasilescu
A "moment of glory and great courage" but also "too many black holes and no shared interpretation of the events". Twenty years later, says professor Mirela Murgescu, the Romanian revolution of December 1989, which could have become the "founding myth" of the new Romanian democracy, still remains extremely controversial. An interview
Already notorious more for its political block voting than even its kitsch and glitzy musical entries, nothing could have prepared anyone for the controversy surrounding the three countries of the South Caucasus in this year's Eurovision Song Contest
The visit of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to Azerbaijan healed the wounds opened by the recent Turkish-Armenian rapprochement. Nagorno Karabakh and gas prices were the main issues discussed during the meetings
Erin Brockovich arrived in Greece to save the Asopus river, contaminated with high levels of hexavalent chrome, the same heavy metal that the American legal assistant had fought against in California
Osservatorio met Grigory Shvedov, the editor-in-chief of 'Caucasian Knot,' the largest news outlet dealing with the region, to talk about freedom of the media, the role of international organisations in the Caucasus and his web portal
The Central Bank of Kosovo warns that the remittances are falling as the diaspora starts to feel the effects of the global economic crisis. Kosovo's diaspora has a long tradition of sending money home because of strong family ties, a practice developed because of Kosovo's difficult political and social environment during the last decades
Young people were arrested while mourning for recently killed fellow students in a Baku university on 10 May, Flower Day in Azerbaijan, also remembered as the birthday of former president Heydar Aliyev
Internet penetration remains low in regions such as the South Caucasus. However, as costs come down and connection speeds increase, there is no doubt that online and mobile communication will become important tools in the hands of civil society and political activists alike
Following the post-electoral violence in Moldova, Romanian authorities approved an urgent act which simplifies the procedures to obtain Romanian citizenship. Despite the tough reactions of Chişinău's authorities, thousands of Moldovans rushed to apply for a Romanian passport
On May 4, daily Dnevnik revealed to its readers secret contracts between the Skopje Municipality and the Fonderia Artistica Ferdinando Marinelli from Florence, for the production of a series of monuments, the biggest of whom is that of Alexander the Great, which will be 22 meters high
Together with some fellow journalists, Altin Raxhimi, an Albanian freelance reporter, took the hard path to disclose the truth on KLA detention camps, allegedly established in Albania and Kosovo during the 1999 war. An exclusive interview for Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso
Romanian NGOs are facing a debate that is not unknown to Italian ones. Budget cuts risk to jeopardise cooperation programs as well as the country's recent participation in international development policies
