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Aleksandar Vučić: ‘Tito was a very smart guy’ (Politico)

Serbia’s president-elect on his critics, Merkel and the outlook for the region.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić sat down with POLITICO on Wednesday for his first extensive interview since winning his country’s presidential election in a landslide.

“Kosovo automatically inherited property of Yugoslavia and Serbia” (RTK)

Kosovo’s Ministry of Justice has issued a press release specifying that the decision of the government of Kosovo to register as its own the immovable property originally registered under former Yugoslavia and Serbia is based on the Constitution of Kosovo and declaration of Kosovo’s independence.  “As an independent country and based on international law rules, Republic of Kosovo has automatically inherited ownership over Yugoslavia and Serbia state property as stipulated in the decision of the Republic of Kosovo Government.

"Journalist need institutional solidarity to fight safety risks" (B92)

On February 27, the Austrian Chairmanship of the OSCE held a high-level conference on Freedom of the Media in the Western Balkans, at Hofburg in Vienna.

The following is the address at the conference of Veran Matic, head of Serbia’s Commission for the Investigation of Murders of Journalists and news editor-in-chief for B92:

Dysfunction in the Balkans (Foreign Affairs)

The political settlement in the former Yugoslavia is unraveling. In Bosnia, the weakest state in the region, both Serbs and Croats are mounting a concerted challenge to the Dayton peace accords, the delicate set of compromises that hold the country together. In Macedonia, political figures from the large Albanian minority are calling for the federalization of the state along ethnic lines. In Kosovo, the Serb minority is insisting on the creation of a network of self-governing enclaves with effective independence from the central government.

Brussels court sentences Serbian nationals to life imprisonment (Tanjug)

A Brussels court has sentenced Serbian nationals Veselin Vukotic, Andrija Draskovic and Bozidar Spasic to life imprisonment for the murder of Kosovo human rights activist Enver Hadri in Brussels 26 years ago.

The jury handed maximum jail terms to the three men, sentencing Vukotic and Draskovic as the perpetrators and Spasic as the mastermind of the killing.

"West humiliated Russia in Balkans; Putin won't give it up" (B92, Washington Post)

Russia's "information campaigns in the Balkans" are part of its "strategy is to create a perception of Russia as a great power and powerful ally."

There, is, however "little substance behind it in investments or donations to the nations involved," writes the Washington Post.

Border demarcation would not have to be related to visas (Koha Ditore)

Augustin Palokaj writes in his weekly column for the paper that while the news of visa liberalization for Kosovo is good, it should be received with caution as it is difficult to give an exact estimate of when the visa regime will actually be lifted. According to Palokaj, on one hand, there is no predictability and stability within the EU on anything and on the other hand, apart from the 90 criteria that Kosovo had to fulfill from the visa liberalization roadmap, two adEUditional ones were added to the list by the European Commission.