- Croatia holds local elections
On Sunday, June 1, the local election runoffs were held in Croatia.
In Zagreb, the incumbent mayor, center-leftist Tomislav Tomašević with the “Možemo!” party, who was supported by the opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP), won the popular vote
Croatia’s second largest city Split will be headed by Tomislav Šuta from the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party, who defeated his rival from the “Centar” party, incumbent mayor Ivica Puljak.
Rijeka, for the first time in the history of modern Croatia, will have a female mayor as independent Iva Rinčić beat incumbent mayor Marko Filipović.
In the fourth largest city, Osijek, the mayor was elected in the first round. The HDZ candidate and incumbent mayor Ivan Radić sealed a landslide victory.
In total, candidates from the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and HDZ partners will lead 15 counties – this number has not changed compared to the previous elections. At the same time, the number of municipalities where a HDZ candidate won (202) increased by seven, and the number of cities (61) – by five.
Candidates supported by the largest opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) won in five counties, 47 municipalities and 25 cities, which is five administrative units fewer than four years ago.
Political analysts assessed the election results as a victory for the HDZ, while the SDP result was called a defeat or even a “failure”.
However, experts perceive as the biggest loser of the elections the Homeland Movement (Domovinski pokret, DP), which failed to retain power in its base city, Vukovar.
Domagoj Bilić, the DP candidate supported by HDZ, lost to Marijan Pavliček, the candidate from the Croatian Sovereignists and DOMiNO (Hrvatski suverenisti i Dom i nacionalno okupljanje, DOMiNO).
- Serbia’s Jadar named among 13 strategic extraction projects outside EU
On June 4, the European Commission published a list of the first 13 strategic projects for the extraction of raw materials outside the European Union. One of them is the Jadar project in Serbia, which is set to be run by the British-Australian Rio Tinto.
The new 13 sites have joined the list of 47 strategic projects under the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) the European Commission had approved in March.
The aim is to diversify supply and increase economic security. “Europe needs raw materials to succeed in our industrial and climate ambitions. The EU requires stable, secure and diversified supply chains,” said Stéphane Séjourné, Executive Vice-President for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy of the European Commission.
In addition to Serbia, the first 13 strategic projects outside the EU are located in Canada, Greenland, Kazakhstan, Norway, Zambia, New Caledonia, Brazil, Madagascar, Malawi, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine.
Most of them are about the extraction of raw materials needed for the production of electric vehicles and batteries, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and graphite.
The strategic projects will enojoy coordinated support from the European Commission, Member States and financial institutions, including simplified access to finance and contacts with relevant clients. It is estimated that a total capital investment of EUR 5.5 billion will be required to launch the 13 strategic projects outside the EU.
The Jadar project in western Serbia, near the town of Loznica, is the only project on the new EC list for the extraction of lithium and boron.
Rio Tinto welcomed the European Commission’s decision designating the Jadar project as a strategic one under the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA). “This decision confirms that the Jadar project can be developed in accordance with European Union standards. The European Commission’s decision highlights the great significance of the Jadar project for both Serbia and the EU in ensuring a reliable supply of critical raw materials essential for the green transition. The Jadar project is one of the most promising and thoroughly researched lithium projects in Europe. With an estimated annual production of 58,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate, Serbia has the potential to become a key player in the electric vehicle supply chain,” the statement said. The local population of the Jadar Valley, environmental organizations, and a number of experts have been opposing the implementation of the Rio Tinto project for several years, citing a lack of transparency and risks to health, environment, and agriculture, especially the potential water contamination. Activists took to the streets several times to protest against the Jadar project.
In early 2022, the Serbian government canceled the adopted plan for lithium mining in the Jadar River Valley and halted the project. However, in July last year, the Serbian authorities, despite protests, walked back on that decision.
The European Commission’s decision to grant the Jadar a status of a strategic importance project caused a wave of indignation in Serbia.
“Lithium will not be mined, and these internal European decisions are not binding on us. … If Europe and our government want to provoke a civil war, then let them try to proceed with the mining,” Zlatko Kokanović from the “Ne damo Jadar” community told Nova.rs.
Vladimir Međak from the European Movement (Vladimir Međak iz Evropskog pokreta) is sure that this is about agreements between Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and the EU so that Vučić could remain in power. “This is an attempt by Vučić to retain power. However, this will not happen. Such a decision will in no way help the regime calm things down in the country, but will only worsen them,” he said.
- Did Vučić’s visit to Moscow complicate Serbia’s European integration?
The Speaker of the Serbian National Assembly, Ana Brnabić, and Serbia’s Minister for European Integration, Nemanja Starović, paid a visit to Brussels. A statement from the Ministry for European Integration noted that Starović stressed Serbia’s firm commitment to the European path and reiterated their strategic goal of EU membership.
On 2 June, Brnabić met with European Union Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos to discuss Serbia’s progress in the European integration process, with a particular focus on the opening of Cluster 3.
“Our plan, and we have now confirmed this with Commissioner Kos, is to try to complete everything by mid-July so that we can ultimately open Cluster 3 by the end of July. This is an ambitious plan, but we want it, and I definitely think we can,” Brnabić told Serbian journalists after the meeting.
The European Commissioner described their meeting on her X account as an “important exchange” of views that focused on “Serbia’s outstanding reform commitments”.
The following day, addressing the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee on Enlargement, Kos said the best way out of the political crisis in Serbia was to implement inclusive reforms, especially when it comes to the media and the electoral process. She stressed that the first step has been taken – the procedure for electing the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM) has been launched. At the same time, real progress in Serbia depends on restoring public trust and involving all stakeholders, Kos noted.
The commissioner said she had told Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić that his visit to Moscow sends the wrong signal and complicates EU’s efforts to protect Serbia’s interests.
Vučić went down hard on Kos’ statement.
“She repeats it, like a parrot, every time. Seems she has nothing else to say. Whatever anyone would ask her in the past ten days, she’d say – ‘oh, Vucic went to Moscow’ – come on, really, can’t you say anything else, for crying out loud? But when she meets with me, she’s not quite so eloquent. Her vocabulary becomes less rich,” the Serbian president said during a press conference on June 4.
European Commission spokesman Guillaume Mercier, commenting on Vučić’s statement, told Serbian journalists that the EU has made it clear to its partners, in particular candidate countries such as Serbia, that relations with Russia cannot continue as if everything is normal. Serbia must convince the EU of its strategic direction, Mercier stressed.
- Serbia fails to align its foreign policy with EU, again
Serbia has failed to implement six new European Union foreign policy decisions, mainly concerning Russia and Ukraine, once again becoming the only country in the Western Balkans not to do so.
As announced by the Council of the EU on 4 June, Serbia has failed to implement Decision (CFSP) 2025/9311 concerning restrictive measures in view of Russia’s actions destabilising the situation in Ukraine, Decision (CFSP) 2025/9361 concerning restrictive measures in view of actions undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine, and Decision (CFSP) 2025/9571 concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Russia.
Serbia has also failed to comply with European Union Decision 2025/9601 amending the 2018 Decision concerning restrictive measures against the proliferation and use of chemical weapons, as well as Decisions 2025/9631 and (CFSP) 2025/9661 concerning restrictive measures in view of Russia’s destabilising activities.
According to the six new decisions of 20 May, all other EU candidate countries from the Western Balkans region, except Serbia – North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, and Bosnia and Herzegovina – have aligned themselves with these decisions. The Council said alignment with these decisions would ensure that the national policies of the candidates for membership are in line with those of the EU, adding that the Union takes note of and welcomes this commitment.
Brussels is not applying any official measures – sanctions or other restrictions – toward Belgrade, but in fact, due to foreign policy differences, the opening of new negotiation clusters for Serbia has been suspended since the beginning of 2022.
- The European Parliament postponed consideration of the Report on North Macedonia
The vote on the annual report on North Macedonia’s progress toward the EU in the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has been postponed.
This happened at the request of the European People’s Party (EPP) group, which was supported by all Bulgarian MEPs.
In their letter to their colleagues, the Bulgarian MEPs report on the unauthorized and premature leak to Skopje of internal parliamentary information – key components of the draft Report. The evidence is the statement of the Prime Minister of North Macedonia, Kristian Mickoski, dated June 1, that he had seen the document in great detail in advance. It is noted that Mickoski’s statement that his government worked on the Report together with the rapporteur in order to achieve a positive result for Skopje is worrying.
The letter states that this evidence points to “a continuous and structured information leaks or even a security breach at the servers and mail of the European Parliament staff by third countries.”
“The important question is whether a third party anticipated, shaped, or even co-authored the critical formulations in the report, which is supposed to reflect the balanced institutional position of the European Parliament?” the Bulgarian MEPs note.
In addition to postponing the vote on the report in the Foreign Affairs Committee and in plenary, MEPs are demanding an internal investigation into a possible breach of internal procedures to determine the source and extent of the leak. MEPs also want the postponement period to be used to revisit the controversial points of the draft report.
Skopje expected that the Progress Report on North Macedonia would mention the centuries-old Macedonian identity and the Macedonian language.
Back in late May, Prime Minister Mickoski announced that the Report would lay down that Macedonians “have a separate Macedonian identity”, distinct from the Bulgarian one, which emerged not after 1945 (as Sofia claims), but centuries earlier, and that there is also a separate Macedonian language.
