Legitimacy Under Strain in the Western Balkans

Between Feb. 10-16, 2026, increasing institutional vulnerabilities and resurfacing of entrenched ethnic divisions were at the forefront of Western Balkan geopolitical dynamics.

Kosovo’s year-long governance paralysis ended with the election of a Parliament speaker and Albin Kurti securing the support needed to recognize his legitimacy as prime minister. However, even as Kosovo appears to be making strides in rapidly forming its government, contested Hague Trial outcomes risk igniting disputed historical narratives with Serbia.

Bosnia’s institutional standoff came to a head amid discursive confrontation between the Republica Srpska (RS) and the Federation, spurred by Milorad Dodik’s national and religious intolerance. Yet, this confrontation was overshadowed by sustained mass demonstrations after a tram derailment killed one and injured four on Feb. 12 in Sarajevo. The public outcry against suspected corruption and opaque management in GRAS, Sarajevo’s public transit authority, led to the resignations of Sarajevo Canton’s prime minister and GRAS’s top executive. The prime minister’s resignation effectively collapsed the entire Cabinet.

Despite longtime posturing as regional antagonists, Serbia and Albania appear to be on a path toward convergence amid controversial judicial reforms, increasingly assertive executives, and persistent public disaffection. 

As interethnic relations and institutional processes are tested, regional securitization through external and multilateral defense partnerships proceeded. This week, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara to discuss deepening bilateral relations in which the two reiterated commitments to defense cooperation. Meanwhile, Serbia also signed a bilateral military cooperation plan with Azerbaijan for 2026, signaling a potential reaction to the further strengthening of Albanian, Kosovar, and Croatian military cooperation via a trilateral meeting, the second to occur so far this year. 

Kosovo 

After a year of political deadlock, Kosovo elected Albulena Haxhiu as parliament speaker in a session headed by Prime Minister Albin Kurti. This marks a crucial step toward the formation of a new government needed to pass a budget, secure international loans, and provide for the election of a new president in March. 

Kurti’s Vetevendosje party secured 66 votes in the 120-seat parliament, demonstrating that he received support from minority parties, as his party received 57 seats in the December elections. Also included was Slavko Simiqi from the Srpska Lista as one of five other deputy speakers. 

This is a breakthrough, as Pristina’s governance stall was primarily driven by the opposition parties’ refusal to enter a coalition with Kurti. The refusal was motivated by Kurti’s contribution to strained relations with Western allies and his governance approach to Kosovo’s Serb-majority north. In the country’s north, Kurti attempted to break Srpska Lista’s monopoly over Serb representation through Serbian media censorship and attempts to block the group’s election certification. 

Haxhiu, in one of her first addresses as speaker, called for the return of all KLA officers. This is in reaction to the recent call for former Kosovar President Hashim Thaci to receive a 45-year prison sentence by the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office during his trial at The Hague. The Special Chambers is part of Kosovo’s justice system, but it has international oversight. This led to criticism by ethnic Albanians, who see the court as ethnically biased, and charge that it seeks to undermine what they see as the KLA’s just war against Serbian forces and for Kosovo’s liberation.

Earlier this month, Serbia’s arrest of an ethnic Albanian man suspected of being in the KLA and accused of committing war crimes drew pushback from Pristina, illustrating how this form of justice is utilized as a point of leverage in the normalization of Serbian-Kosovar relations. 

Thus, even as Kurti and Vetevendosje have seemingly overcome the challenges that plagued their political governance in 2025, ethnic discourse remains a key tool in Pristina's diplomatic toolkit. This risks not only furthering international fissures with Serbia but also revitalizing domestic ones along with it. 

Bosnia and Herzegovina 

In a speech praising Siniša Karan’s victory in an election to succeed him as the Republica Srpska president, Milorad Dodik promised that Karan would take decisive action, alluding to Karan’s tenure becoming even more hardline and more disruptive. He then said:  

“We are aware of our enemies, and I want this nation to know that you have to inflict some losses on the enemy every day because he is your enemy, and ... the Sarajevo political establishment and Muslim Sarajevo, are our enemy.”  

Such derogatory populist discourse creates the illusion of an internal enemy within Bosnia. The subsequent, clearly marked, societal division acts to generate ground for secessionist mobilization through marginalization and moralized anti-pluralism.

Responses from the Federation varied. Delegates of the Bosniak People’s Club in the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina submitted a criminal complaint against Dodikto the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina for “inciting national, racial, and religious hatred, discord, and intolerance from the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina.” Meanwhile, Defense Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina Zukan Helez called on SNSD leader Dodik to “finally initiate the secession that he has been announcing for over a decade.” 

Such rhetorical exchanges fuel instability, thus further weakening Bosnia’s cohesion in a way that ultimately favors secessionist actors. By explicitly calling on Dodik to initiate secession, the impasse between Bosnia’s entities is trending toward culmination as such remarks can be used as a legitimizer for mobilization. Proposed legal action, while a crucial accountability mechanism for preventing escalating ethnic tensions that threaten postwar reconciliation measures, might only fuel RS rhetoric of the Federation as an “internal enemy,” as Dodik has long held the courts as “elitist institutions” that undermine RS autonomy. 

Against this confrontational backdrop, Bosnia’s capital city has seen five consecutive days of mass demonstrations following a tram derailment accident which killed one person and injured four others on Feb. 12. 

Amid the intense public pressure, the Sarajevo Canton Prime Minister Nihad Uk resigned and effectively brought the entire cantonal Cabinet into a technical mandate until a new government is formed. The top executive of GRAS, Sarajevo’s public transport authority, which operates the city’s tram system, resigned shortly after  Uk. The demonstrations have continued despite the resignations, as protesters allege widespread corruption and opaque procurement and management processes in the cantonal government and the transport authority. 

Rather than an isolated incident, the protesters are treating the derailment as a symptom of a chronic and systemic governance failure. The derailment is likely to matter in Bosnia’s general elections in October, when voters will choose the next cantonal assembly. In electoral terms, the current dynamic may mobilize younger voters and reframe party competition within Sarajevo Canton. The incumbents will likely face a defensive campaign centered on damage control and blame allocation, while the challengers may use the opportunity to campaign on anticorruption and credible governance messages. 

Serbia  

The EU is considering suspension of 1.6 billion euros in funding designated for Serbia under the EU Growth Plan for the Western Balkans over concerns about Mrdic laws reforming the country’s judicial system.

Despite potential fiscal losses from the EU partnership, Serbia is expanding bilateral relations with Azerbaijan, particularly in the realm of energy. Azerbaijan is set to increase gas exports to Serbia, and an agreement was signed for the construction of a combined cycle gas-fired power plant near the Serbian city of Niš, expected to have an installed capacity of around 500 megawatts. 

Such endeavors will strengthen Serbia’s energy security, which is crucial amid Serbian efforts to diversify energy sources away from Russian energy under pressure from the United States. 

Albania 

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama announced his government would change the law to protect ministers from suspension while they are under criminal investigation. 

The proposal is a direct reaction to a current probe into Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Ballaku on corruption charges, which has ignited sustained anti-government protests, led by opposition leaders in Albania’s capital, that continue to escalate. This week, both the Parliament and the prime minister's office were targeted, while 21 people were detained and 16 police officers were injured. 

Legal reforms erode the separation of powers and further test Rama’s limits of executive power, prompting concerns not only of institutional stability, but also whether Albania is set on a convergent path towardSerbia. Serbia has similarly experienced sustained anti-government protests, an increasingly assertive executive intent on eroding civil society, and the recent passage of controversial judicial laws that risk significant EU funding.  

Rama utilized his upcoming appearance at U.S. President Donald Trump’s inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace to appeal to the public, attempting to portray the invitation as evidence of Albania’s dignified international standing as a means of garnering domestic credibility. 

This subsequently provoked debate over Tirana’s international posturing and whether the EU rules-based incentives are strong enough to entice Albania to remain in Brussels’ orbit.  

Regional Implications  

Across the Western Balkans this week, political legitimacy and governance capacity emerged as primary nodes of political struggle.

Kosovo’s procedural breakthrough ended the political deadlock, yet the political legacy of the war and war crimes trials in The Hague remain ready tools of securitization vis-à-vis Serbia. At the same time, Bosnia shows a dual crisis. Entity-level ethnic antagonisms remain persistent and risk hardening secession mobilization in RS, while Sarajevo’s mass protests expose governance failures that may reshape election dynamics in October. 

Serbia and Albania’s contested judicial changes are testing EU conditionality at a time when Brussels’ leverage is diluted by alternative security and energy partnerships. 

Fragile institutions set against a backdrop of rising intolerance and securitization risks generating a combustible mix, especially as international priorities are shifting in the face of a growing rift in Euro-Atlantic anchors.