UNHCR, the leading UN refugee protection agency, is supporting the enforcement of border restrictions designed to implement a selective right to claim asylum based on nationality.
Balkan borders dominoed shut last week, ostensibly to block ‘economic migrants’, and now only Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis may pass. Those trapped, however, have come too far to stay quiet.
One of the co-ordinators of the protests in Macedonia gives us a personal insight into the country's dysfunctional political and social life, how the protests started, and why he thinks Macedonia has changed - for the better.
Macedonia's "hybrid regime" poses a serious threat to Europe, and the EU needs to act now before it's too late.
Like putting a plaster on a wound that has not been cleaned, an EU-mediated deal to stabilise (but not necessarily democratise) the country is being negotiated behind closed doors.
A former staunch ally of the US-led War on Terror, Macedonia PM Nikola Gruevski has gradually turned his country away from the west towards Russia - all the while keeping his neoconservative ideology intact.
The country must avoid just replacing the driver in the seat of a captured state machinery - by increasing inclusion and pluralism in governance. This will be impossible without EU and NATO assistance.
From today's perspective, it seems amazing to think that Macedonia was actually one of the frontrunners on the road to European integration in the Balkans, even before the most recent member of the EU club, Croatia.
Espionage, wiretappings and attempted coup d'etats...just what is going on in Macedonia?
The Macedonian government shows little interest in fostering interethnic communication. It relies on nationalistic rhetoric and interethnic tensions.
Events over the summer in Macedonia revealed just how fragile interethnic relationships remain. The EU and the US must address their responsibilities as guarantors of the country’s peace accord.
It’s quiet again in Skopje after violent Albanian protests in early July—deceptively so.
