Balkan states depend on foreign influences to function, both internally and regionally. Increasingly, the key external factor is the European Union (EU).

Those of you based in the UK may have read about the arrest of a PG student and an employee of the University of Nottingham, because they were in possession of an al-Qa’ida manual. When it emerged that the manual is freely available at a US government website and that the student used it for research on his MA dissertation, while the employee printed the 1,500-pages-document for his student friend who could not afford to print such a large document, both men were released, after spending 6 days in custody.

Book publisher Dejan Ilic discusses the negotiations on forming the Serbian government, the education system in Serbia and the riots in Belgrade on February 21st, 2008.

Economist Misa Brkic discusses signing the memorandum of strategic partnership between Fiat and Zastava and its impact on the elections.

Economist Vladimir Gligorov analyses the possible consequences of forming an anti-European government, repealing the SAA and the elections in Vojvodina.

Lawyer Srdja Popovic talks about the divisions in Serbian society, the ratification of the SAA and the possibility of conflict and physical violence in case of protests in Belgrade.

Crucial to the process of transition in the former Yugoslavia is responding adequately to the question of responsibility for crimes committed in the name of a collectivity.

The main point of this paper is that foreign aid fails because the structure of its incentives resembles that of central planning. Aid is not only ineffective, it is arguably counterproductive.

Who is “responsible”, and what does that “responsibilitiy mean? How does one deal with this responsibility and look at one’s past through those eyes, and finally – what does it mean for one’s steps into the future?