Balkan Legal News – 15 October 2025

The following media round-up on international, legal and foreign policy issues from around the Balkans for the period from 09 October to 14 October 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

Albania – 13 October 2025

Three Albanian IT experts say they are putting forward an artificial intelligence ‘candidate’ for the upcoming mayoral elections in the capital, called ‘TirANA’ (Tirana Algorithmic Neural Assistant) – although it is not yet clear if the electoral authorities will accept it. Their initiative comes after Prime Minister Edi Rama appointed an AI-generated ‘minister’ named Diella to his cabinet – a digital assistant that formerly provided online services to the public through the state-run e-Albania portal.  The full article is available here.

Kosovo – 13 October 2025

Preliminary counts from Sunday’s municipal elections in Kosovo indicate that most major Albanian-majority municipalities – including Pristina, Peja/Pec, South Mitrovica and Prizren – are probably heading to a second round of voting after indecisive results across much of the country. According to the Central Election Commission (“CEC”), runoffs will take place on 9 November in municipalities where no candidate received more than 50 per cent of the vote. The CEC reported a turnout of 39 per cent. The full article can be found here.

Bulgaria – 10 October 2025

A new draft privacy law introduced by the ‘There’s Such a People’ party, which is part of Bulgaria's ruling coalition, has been criticised as a major threat to journalists’ ability to hold politicians to account. Filed on 7 October by the nationalist coalition party, the proposal aims to criminalise the dissemination of information about a person’s “personal life” without their consent – raising fears this could lead to silencing and repression.  The full article can be found here.

Kosovo – 9 October 2025

Slavko Simic, the deputy leader of Srpska Lista, the Belgrade-backed Kosovo Serb party, pleaded not guilty on Thursday to participating in and ordering attacks on journalists in 2023 during unrest in the Serb-majority municipality of Leposavic in north Kosovo. The full article can be found here.

Greece – 9 October 2025

Twenty-five men trafficked from Nepal to be exploited for agricultural labour in Greece were rescued while living in “unhealthy and degrading conditions”, Greek police said in a press release published on Thursday. The rescue was part of a major operation carried out on Tuesday throughout the country, in which police said 10 members of a criminal organisation from Pakistan, including one of its leading members, were arrested.  The full article can be found here.

Serbia – 9 October 2025

Sanctions on Serbia’s biggest oil importer, the partly Russian-owned company NIS (Oil Industry of Serbia), came into force on 9 October after the company was not granted another waiver from penalties from the US Ministry of Finance. NIS, which supplies over 300 petrol stations in Serbia, said it had secured enough oil to avoid jeopardising supply to consumers. The full article can be found here.