Balkan Legal News – 10 December 2025

The following media round-up on international, legal and foreign policy issues from around the Balkans for the period from 03 December to 08 December 2025. Guernica 37 will provide weekly media updates with a focus on Bosnia and Hercegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia. Should you wish to contribute or submit a media summary, opinion piece or blog, please send to Ned Vucijak at nenadv@guernica37.com for consideration.

Guernica 37 Balkan Legal News

Bulgaria – 8 December 2025

Human Rights Watch, HRW, warned in a new report released on Monday that Bulgaria’s slow coal phaseout is fuelling dangerous air pollution, violating new air-quality rules and risking the loss of access to EU funding.  The report, “Like a Prisoner in My Home’: Coal Fueling Toxic Air in Bulgaria”, analyses data and collects testimonies from residents, activists and experts, revealing alarmingly high air pollution levels in Dimitrovgrad, a town in southern Bulgaria.  The full article is available here.

Romania – 8 December 2025

Ciprian Ciucu was elected the new mayor of Bucharest in Sunday’s election, securing around 35 per cent of the vote, some 12 per cent more than the second-placed contender, an independent rightist, Anca Alexandrescu. The turnout was the lowest registered in the last three decades, at only 32.7 per cent. Ciucu, currently mayor of Bucharest’s District 6, is from the centre-right National Liberal Party, PNL, a junior member of the ruling coalition. The full article is available here.

Bosnia & Herzegovina – 5 December 2025

The president of the UN-backed International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, Graciela Gatti Santana, has rejected a plea from wartime Bosnian Serb Army commander Dragomir Milosevic for early release. Milosevic, 83, who is serving his sentence in Estonia, had cited the fact that he is elderly and in poor health as grounds for a release on humanitarian grounds. However, in a decision made public by the court on Friday, Gatti Santana said that Milosevic is not suffering from “an acute crisis or a life-threatening medical condition”.  The full article is available here.

Greece – 5 December 2025

The Swiss Franc Borrowers Association in Greece filed a lawsuit at the Supreme Court on Friday against three unnamed major banks, claiming loans made in Swiss francs had unfair exchange-rate terms and that borrowers were not clearly informed or properly warned before signing. In the lawsuit, around 3,700 members of the Swiss Franc Borrowers Association are asking the court to declare the exchange rate clause in the loans invalid and to recalculate the loans using the original exchange rate from when the money was first lent. The full article is available here.

Western Balkans – 4 December 2025

A high-level meeting between Prosecutors General from eleven Latin American countries and four Western Balkan countries took place on 2–3 December 2025 at Eurojust premises. This meeting was part of a wider three-day event that brought together senior judicial representatives from Latin American, Western Balkan and MENA partners, in one of the largest assemblies of third-country partners ever hosted at Eurojust. The meeting focused on strengthening operational cooperation between these regions and the EU, and among the regions themselves. This joint effort aims to reinforce collective responses to serious and organised crime, which continues to evolve with an increasingly transnational dimension. The full article can be found here.

Serbia – 4 December 2025

Minister of Culture Nikola Selakovic arrived for questioning by Serbian prosecutors on Thursday over his alleged role in an attempt to remove the designation of the former Yugoslav Army HQ in Belgrade as a cultural asset so it can be demolished. Selakovic is one of the suspects in the case related to the forgery of documents that would have enabled the building, a protected cultural asset, to be knocked down. He denies wrongdoing. The full article can be found here.

Kosovo – 3 December 2025

Kosovo’s Western allies reacted with criticism after election officials on Tuesday again barred the Belgrade-backed Srpska Lista party from participating in this month’s parliamentary elections, after similar bars in previous polls. International missions and embassies in Kosovo responded after a vote in the Central Elections Commission on Tuesday afternoon saw Srpska Lista barred from snap elections on December 28. The full article is available here.

Western Balkans – 3 December 2025

Environmental crime has become one of the fastest-growing illicit economies in the Western Balkans, fuelled by corruption, weak law enforcement and a lack of public awareness, according to a new report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. The study says environmental crime is now “among the most lucrative transnational criminal activities in the world”, generating an estimated $110bn-281bn annually” and expanding at a rate of 5-7% per year. All major types of environmental offences — from illegal logging and wildlife trafficking to hazardous-waste dumping and industrial pollution — are found across the region. The full article is available here.