As the US retreats from #anticorruption, the UK and EU need to act together, aligning approaches on enablers, accountability & systemic reforms. This The Lead | theleaduk.substack.com piece by John Heathershaw @jheathershaw.bsky.social Tom Mayne and I is a first step in joining those dots. More to come. national.thelead.uk/p/time-to-stop…

And another EU citizen got deported from Serbia with a one year entry ban. Italian pianist Davide Martello, who came to Niš and played in support of students there.

1/4 Our article with Eleni Vasdoka on 🇷🇸´s strategic hedging towards the 🇪🇺, 🇺🇸, 🇨🇳 &🇷🇺 has just been released. A short 🧵: journalse.com/great-powers-a…

7/ Bez nauke na univerzitetima, nema inovacija, nema ekspertize, nema kvalitetnih diploma. Nema budućnosti za mnoge generacije.

Listen to the ep.15 of 🎙️Seriously Balkans - The #BiEPAGtalks 🔹What the new German Government means for the Balkans Host: Florian Bieber Guests: Adi Ćerimagić ESI - European Stability Initiative Frauke Seebass, Visting Fellow at SWP Berlin & Associate Researcher, DGAP 🎧👇open.spotify.com/episode/48qZ0K…

🧵1/ New publication alert! Our Coordinator Prof. Nikolaos Tzifakis (@tzifakis.bsky.social), with Eleni Vasdoka, explores #Serbia's strategic hedging between global powers in the #WesternBalkans. A very timely contribution to understanding great-power influence in the region. 🔗bit.ly/43dKJkT

📚 Book Launch & Panel | Indulging Kleptocracy Join us on 20 May at 12:30 CET at the European Parliament, Brussels for a high-level event on transnational #corruption & the #EU’s role in addressing it.

📢Join us on May 26 in Belgrade🇷🇸 for a high-level public conference co-hosted with our sister project REUNIR: “Frontlines of Influence: The EU’s🇪🇺 Role in the Western Balkans & Eastern Partnership” 📅 15:30–19:00 | 📍 Europe House Moreℹ️ & registration🔗bit.ly/42Z3GZF

Full house - and a great discussion - at yesterday’s launch event of ThinkEurope in Ljubljana. I represented Center for Advanced Studies - South East Europe bringing some GEO-POWER-EU research into the mix. Good luck to our friends Sabina Lange and Zoran Nechev 🇲🇰🇪🇺 with this new venture

📢Secure your place! Join us May 26 in Belgrade 🇷🇸 for a high-level #GeoPowerEU & #REUNIR conference on the EU’s role in the Western Balkans & Eastern Partnership. 🕒15:30–19:00 |📍Europe House 🔗Registration bit.ly/42Z3GZF 💻Online participation—link coming soon!

About this week in Brussels European Parliament Tom Mayne SonjaStojanovicGajic John Heathershaw @jheathershaw.bsky.social Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project Vladimir Prebilič Viola von Cramon 🇺🇦🇪🇺 Đorđe Bojović

Meta-disinfo. 🎪 Colleagues and friends are increasingly under attack by Vucic’s media. It’s a travesty that gets more ridiculous - but not less troubling and dangerous - by the day. #Serbia

🚨New blog alert! Prof N. Džuverović Belgrade University analyzes Serbia's 🇷🇸foreign policy balancing act in a new piece published by European Western Balkans 🇪🇺, drawing on data from the GEOPOWER EU database. 🔗Read the article: shorturl.at/538A4 📊Explore the database: shorturl.at/jaN2H

Reject & redirect: On academic complicity. “Even our acts of academic resistance (if this is nothing but a contradiction in terms!) […] serve to keep feeding and even providing bits and pieces of ‘post-factum re-legitimization’ of the academic beast.” yugoslawomenplus.net/2025/05/29/on-…

EXCLUSIVE: An alleged Albanian mob boss recently arrested in Abu Dhabi appeared to be using the UAE as a money laundering hub, according to Ecuadorian prosecution documents obtained by OCCRP. w/ Plan V occrp.org/en/news/exclus…

By labeling Jadar as strategic, the EU effectively grants it a seal of approval, ignoring the lack of rule of law in Serbia and the problems with the implementation of laws and regulations by Serbian authorities, and ignoring intense domestic opposition.

Despite the multiannual, immense resistance of citizens across the country, the expert community, civil society, locals and the majority of the opposition, the European Commission today decided to include the controversal Jadar lithium mining project to its strategic projects. 🧵

🔔Ep.16 of Seriously Balkans - The #BiEPAGtalks 🔷The Evolving Role of the European Political Community Host: Donika Emini, BiEPAG Guests: Odeta Barbullushi, Professor College of Europe, BiEPAG member Tristan Aureau Director, Centre for Analysis, Planning and Strategy, MFA France

Odličan tekst Jurice Pavičića, s jezivo proročanskom porukom na kraju.

This is a story about spies. Though they are highly trained, they don’t work for an intelligence agency. They work for paying clients. One target was James Coussey. He'd been a criminal prosecutor. Why were they after him? My new Guardian investigation (1/8)