Week in Review: Hopes and Dilemmas

Forcing a deal Mount Jahorina in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where some disputed state property is located, seen from Trebevic. Photo: Julian Nyca/Wikimedia Commons. The question of who owns Bosnia and Herzegovina’s state property is a major point of dispute and an unresolved issue on the country’s path away from supervision by the Office of the High Representative and towards membership of the EU. Not surprising, perhaps, in a country where the core issue of sovereignty is contested. Intractable though the issue may seem, might there be movement towards resolving it? Washington’s newly-discovered interest in energy, mining and infrastructure projects in the country is putting the spotlight on this issue. Now the question is whether Bosnia will solve the issue of state property on Washington’s terms or its own. Read more: Could Trump’s Administration Force a Deal on Bosnia’s State Property? (August 21, 2026) Pre-campaigning Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic walking the streets of the small town of Ub in western Serbia. Source: Buducnost Srbije AV/Instagram. Will he? Won’t he? For much of the year, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic has kept the public guessing over if and when he might call early elections. Indeed, Vucic himself may still not have made up his mind. But in the meantime, the Serbian leader has been on a blitz tour of the country, visiting factories, checking on roadworks and hearing the pleas and grievances of ordinary people. The pace and scale of the campaign have caught many by surprise. In his opinion piece for Balkan Insight, Bojan Vranic dissects the motivation for Vucic’s manoeuvres. Read more: Hanging Out: Serbia’s Ruling Party Funfair is About Suppressing Voter Turnout (August 24, 2026) Courting Trump Banner at a UFC fight tournament in Belgrade on August 1. Photo courtesy of N1. As the conflict between the US and Iran limps on, ordinary Americans are feeling the pinch. So, it seems, are Donald Trump’s approval ratings on handling the economy, as November’s crucial mid-term elections approach. Yet while Trump’s appeal may be tanking in the US, his star still shines in faraway corners of the world, including the Balkans. In her regular ‘Letter from Washington’ column, Jovana Djurovic takes a look at the latest attempts by Balkan countries and their leaders to ingratiate themselves with Trump. Read more: Letter from Washington: Buying Trump’s Favour with UFC in Serbia, Arms in Albania (August 27, 2026) Making peace A street in Yuksekova, a city in the Hakkari province in southeast Turkey. Photo: Ingrid Woudwijk. As Turkey moves to end its four decade-long conflict with the Kurdish PKK militant group, the prospect of peace is opening up new dilemmas for Kurdish villagers displaced by years of fighting. Tens of thousands of people have fled areas of fighting over the decades, leaving several thousand villages depopulated. With peace apparently within grasp, some of those displaced are revisiting their homes and villages. While many long to return for good, rebuilding normal life in most of these villages will be anything but simple, as our report shows. Read more: As Turkey Makes Peace, Kurdish Villagers Who Fled Conflict Contemplate Return (August 25, 2026) Brewing resistance A protest against a coastal resort project linked to Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Trump, in Tirana, June 2026. Photo: EPA/MALTON DIBRA. Have people across the Balkans had enough of foreign-backed luxury development projects? Campaigns against two very prominent projects linked to the Trump family in Serbia and Albania seem to suggest so. In his opinion piece for Balkan Insight, Ted Todorovic-Thomas takes a look at whether something is stirring across the region. He argues that the trend has deeper and more long-standing roots. Read more: Across the Balkans, Foreign-Backed Luxury Developments Cause Local Anger (August 25, 2026) Missing millions Sharra incinerator near Tirana. Photo: BIRN/Besar Likmeta. In 2017, a private company agreed a concession with the Albanian government to build and operate a waste disposal and incineration facility outside the capital, Tirana. By 2023, some 104 million euros had been transferred to the company in public funds and other revenues. But there was a catch. When the state took over the project in 2023, there was next to nothing to show for all the money spent. Our investigation takes a look at the ongoing trial over the missing money behind Albania’s ghost incinerators. Read more: Waste Money Wasted: The Millions of Euros Behind Albania’s Ghost Incinerators (August 21, 2026)