PECOB's Papers series

What was Slobodan Milosevic’s role in the Yugoslav dissolution? Is it possible to contextualize, in a better way, from the historical point of view Milosevic’s ascent to power? Which research paths could be followed? Much of the current scholarly literature about Yugoslavia tend to express a methodological point of view who underplay the importance of the historical circumstances.

Bilijana Vankovska, professor and Head of MA program in Peace and Development, Faculty of Philosophy, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, writes a paper entitled "(Im)possibility of reconciliation in the Balkans".

With the disintegration of former Yugoslavia, Macedonia became an independent state. Similar to other Republics of the former Yugoslavia, Macedonia had to carry out double transitions, i.e. transition to a market economy and transition from a regional economy to a national economy. For a newly independent small country to survive the environment of market economy, it is required to settle domestic conflicts, establish good relationship with neighboring countries and secure economic independence. Western Balkan countries, which have experienced ethnic conflicts and still have domestic ethnic problems, would not be assured of their survival as long as they remain outside the European Union. This paper examines how Macedonia has been tackling the above mentioned problems, proceeding toward EU accession in the context of EU’s Stabilization and Association Process. In the discussion a successful small country Slovenia, which consisted of the former Yugoslavia, is utilized as a benchmark.

The evolution of genetically related languages may sometimes result in a radical modification and differentiation of their structures. The author of this article uses the term shift to designate this kind of structural changes. The relevance of the shift may be increased by geographical and temporal distance. There is a chronological asymmetry in the establishment and development of Italian and Russian. The forefathers of the two modern languages...

Considering the lack of pipelines and infrastructures, natural gas is not widely available in the Balkans and specific policies are required to build new networks in upstream and downstream phase.

The Balkans’ economic relations with European Union countries have been particularly intense during the last decades. Geographical reasons together with political and economical links can explain why the process of development and integration of Balkan’s countries is of paramount interest for the European Union: this area represents the South - Eastern gateway to a new and more integrated Europe...

Stalin’s regime left a deep scar in the memories of Lithuanians and Poles in emigration and brought about a change in their geopolitical imagination. In the real threat, Lithuanian-Polish relations were reviewed anew. Concentration camps and massive murders - the signs of Stalin policy - caused disagreements and mutual offenses to be forgotten. After very strong hostility, mistakes were…

The aim of this research project ("Bilingualism and migration in different Russian speaking settings") is analyzing contemporary Russian speaking communities in different social and linguistic settings in order to identify divergent or common features, concerning language maintenance vs. decay, group integration (or assimilation) vs. insertion without integration. The method of Linguistic Landscape, which is here applied to these two settings, gave interesting results.

The EU has undertaken strong commitment towards the South-East Europe (SEE) within the overall strategy for the region. Three sets of interlinked issues related to the SEE are on the European agenda: stabilisation, reforms and the EU integration. Renewed consensus over enlargement was achieved ("3Cs") with commitment to the European perspective of the region, while the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty opened the door for further EU enlargement. Major challenges are ahead, such as...

Nowadays, a strategic highly-skilled migration policyis crucial for every country. A knowledge based economy represents a realbusiness and a long term investment for the future; a highly skilled labourforce is the true added value to each market, Italy is still working onimplementing a new strategy for a more flexible and more internationalisedsociety to adapt its labour force to the real global competitiveness. Althoughin the last decades the number of migrants in Italy has widely grown - thereare around...