How technology helped Serbia save 180 million sheets of paper in less than 4 years

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Joe Myers, Writer, Formative Content Serbia’s government has made digitalization a focus. It began rolling out electronic e-government services in June 2017. Since then, it estimates it has saved around 180 million sheets of A4 paper. Digitalization and […]

Enlargement reports: MEPs fully support Western Balkans’ European future

This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament. Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Serbia need to continue focusing on fundamental reforms, say MEPs in resolutions adopted on Thursday. In their reports assessing the progress made by Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Serbia in the last two years, MEPs warn that advancement by […]

5 things to know about the Western Balkans

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Douglas Broom, Senior Writer, Formative Content When leaders of the EU’s current 28 members gathered last month to discuss membership applications from Albania and North Macedonia, there was optimism that the accession process would be given a green light. […]

Will Western Balkans respond positively to EU initiatives?

The European Commission announced yesterday its strategy regarding the perspective of EU enlargement with the Western Balkans within the next decade.  Six initiatives will be the guidelines of the EU which must be fulfilled in order to be able for these countries to complete the necessary steps for their accession process. The EU seems to […]

The European Union’s Balkan Double Standard

This article was written for the Sting by one of our passionate readers, Mr Daniel Jankovic. The opinions expressed within reflect only the writer’s views and not The European Sting’s position on the issue. Over the past several years, analysts and commentators have noticed a rising tide of domestic support for the Croatian homegrown Nazi movement […]

Migration has set EU’s political clock ticking; the stagnating economy cannot help it and Turkey doesn’t cooperate

The more action clauses a document of a Western Balkans-EU agreement contains, meant to “improve cooperation and step up consultation between the countries along the migration route”, the less cooperation there will be. That was the case last Sunday 25 October when 11 leaders of Balkan and EU countries met in Brussels. They knew very […]

Why the 33,000 staff European Commission did not have a real contingency plan for the refugee crisis?

Last Wednesday the EU leaders convened in Brussels to discuss the migration crisis in view of the decision made by the Interior Ministers one day ago. The Heads of States finally decided to “work together in a spirit of solidarity and responsibility” supporting the positive vote taken by the majority of Ministers at the Extraordinary […]

Migration crisis will keep deteriorating as common EU political will is simply not there

The migration crisis in the European Union was the main issue of the Western Balkans Summit yesterday in Vienna, but was largely overshadowed by the deaths of at least 20 refugees who were found dead in a truck in Austria. This tragic event shocked everyone in the Summit who expressed the need for immediate actions by […]

The EU pretends not knowing what happens in the Western Balkans

It’s more than a joke, it’s a clear deception or even an imperialistic attitude of the European Union, towards the countries wanting to join it, to tell them that they pass Commissioner Štefan Füle‘s test of the “five fundamentals”. Of course this doesn’t apply to Turkey or Iceland, because both of them seem to have […]