Balkan Insight

One Year in the Palace: How Nawrocki Made the Polish Presidency His Own In the 12 months since Karol Nawrocki took office, Law and Justice – the party that brought him to power – is tearing itself apart, while the president is emerging as the figure around whom Poland’s right wing could eventually regroup.

Call for Applications: Cross-Border Environmental Investigative Training - BIRN Balkan Investigative Reporting Regional Network (BIRN Hub) is opening a call for applications for a specialised Environmental Journalism Training Programme designed to strengthen the capacities of environmental investigative journalists from Southeast Europe by providing specialised training, mentor...

Open Call: BIRN Travel & Reporting Grants 2026 - BIRN The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) is inviting journalists and media outlets to apply for its Travel & Reporting Grants Programme.

Democracy Digest: Study Finds Slovakia Has Europe’s Weakest Spy Agency Elsewhere, former Polish PM confirms new party launch as P*S split deepens; Czech police investigate MP over car crash; journalists at Hungarian state media kept record of news manipulation under Orban.

Surveys of temperature levels in North Macedonia’s capital Skopje suggest more trees and climate-conscious urban planning could significantly reduce the toll on public health during heatwaves - but practical implementation is moving slowly.
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North Macedonia’s Sweltering Capital Needs Green Fixes for ‘Urban Heat Islands’ Surveys of temperature levels in North Macedonia’s capital Skopje suggest more trees and climate-conscious urban planning could significantly reduce the toll on public health during heatwaves - but practical implementation is moving slowly.

The mass incursion into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta showed would-be EU members how the European bloc responds to a genuine shock to its self-proclaimed values of ‘solidarity’.

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Letter from Brussels: Ceuta Migrant Panic Casts Shadow Over EU’s Summer The mass incursion into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta showed would-be EU members how the European bloc responds to a genuine shock to its self-proclaimed values of ‘solidarity’.

Various libertarians and Gen Z students have made use of the confused state of the Croatia-Serbia river border to proclaim independent mini-states – although police and governments insist they have no legal basis.

Lands in Limbo: Danube 'Microstates' Dream Big Despite Lack of Recognition Various libertarians and Gen Z students have made use of the confused state of the Croatia-Serbia river border to proclaim independent mini-states – although police and governments insist they have no legal basis.

‘Our Parents Carried us to Safety’: Disabled Kosovo Children Recall Escape in 1999 In March 1999, as Serbian forces expelled Kosovo Albanian families from their homes, Sali Morina and his wife had to carry three of their children, all suffering from muscular dystrophy, by hand to safety.

Households and businesses advised to consume less electricity during ongoing heatwave, to ease pressure on power grid that has been exacerbated by record-low water levels on the River Danube.

The capital, Bucharest, has already reduced street lighting by one-third in the evenings and switched off illumination at landmark buildings and museums overnight to save electricity. Other cities have introduced similar measures.

Earlier this week, the country’s largest energy-intensive companies, including car manufacturers, steel producers, fertilizer plants and other major industrial consumers, suspended operations or scaled back production to reduce pressure on the power grid.

A prolonged heatwave and record-low water levels on the Danube have forced Romania to restrict water use for agricultural irrigation, disrupting river transport, tourism and the energy sector. The authorities have also shut down one reactor at the country’s only nuclear power plant, at Cernavoda, which relies on Danube water for cooling.

The government declared a nationwide energy alert on July 31, which will remain in force throughout August.

https://balkaninsight.com/2026/08/06/romanians-urged-to-use-less-electricity-in-heatwave-as-danube-levels-drop/bi/

The Czech government is planning to give single women access to assisted reproduction services. Might the PM’s own stake in the fertility market have something to do with it?

Read more: https://balkaninsight.com/2026/08/06/ivf-for-single-women-raises-new-conflict-of-interest-questions-for-czech-pm/rd/
Illustrative image. Source: Pixabay