Months after US sanctions took effect on Serbian Oil Industry, NIS, as one of Gazprom Neft’s subsidiaries, Hungary’s MOL says it will buy the majority of shares in the company. The NIS company logo is ...

Migrant workers from Africa have told BIRN about having to surrender their passports on arrival in Albania, working unpaid overtime and facing deportation once they are no longer required. Many are ...

Far-right demonstrators in Bucharest shouted slogans against a law that has tightened the penalties on supporters of fascist and racist movements – even though its implementation has been patchy. Riot ...

New draft law aims to drastically tighten restrictions on smoking, and on advertising nicotine products, amid stubbornly high consumption rates. A woman smokes a cigarette in Skopje. Photo: EPA/GEORGI ...

BIRN's monitoring of digital rights violations in August and September highlighted a threatening Hungarian ‘dark web’ site that contained illegally obtained images of women, plus a series of arrests ...

Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama has proposed using artificial intelligence in public procurement processes to tackle corruption – but experts argue that the root causes should be dealt with first.

After the US paused visa processing for 75 countries, including Albania, the opposition in Tirana has accused the government of getting the country put on Trump's "blacklist". Albanian Minister for ...

Mijic was released from extradition detention in Serbia, after spending a year behind the bars, which is the legal maximum a person can spend in extradition detention. Currently, he resides on the ...

Auditors have flagged “anomalies” worth almost 14 million euros in deals between a Serbian arms factory and a Belgian machinery manufacturer, BIRN can report. This post is also available in this ...

Experts say more proactive approaches may be needed to deal with ongoing wave of emailed bomb alerts that are highly disruptive – but difficult to trace. Hoax bomb threats, mostly sent by email to ...

The government is promising more reforms – but progress towards EU membership and all-important economic growth depends heavily on an end to Russia's war against Ukraine.

Balkan countries are continuing to sacrifice their remaining clean river stretches to development and pollution, a new assessment warns.