Serbia is not known for its gay-friendly policies. [...] This week though, Serbian President Aleksander Vucic made a historic decision: naming Ana Brnabic prime minister. If her cabinet is approved next week, she will become a double first: the country's first female and first openly gay head of government. [...] Vucic's selection of Brnabic is seen by many as a nod toward broader equality, and an effort to nudge his country closer toward the West.

Kosovo has been in a visa liberalization dialogue with the EU for nearly five years now, and has been working towards this goal for much longer than that. Its neighbors in the region have all but forgotten what they went through over six years ago, by now so used to this basic freedom. Is Kosovo so different from its neighbors? 

For the people of the Balkans the social media coincides with the period of democratic transition, with parliamentarian democracy, political pluralism, freedom and human rights, free market economy and the opening up of Euro-Atlantic integration. In this premature phase the social media entered with a great speed in the reality of the Balkans. 

 It took over 15 years of both hard and soft power from the international community to eventually sort out the situation on the ground in Bosnia. [...] Unfortunately, solving the problems in Syria will take at least that long given the underlying Sunni-Shiite conflict overlaid by the atrocities of the past five years.

European leaders agreed to cooperate to manage migrants crossing the Balkans but offered no quick fix to a crisis that threatens to take more lives as winter sets in and to set Europe's nations against one another.