Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence

12/11/2025

The EU's "freedom of movement” gives its citizens the right to travel, work, and live freely within the bloc – or so we think. In fact, for some of the bloc's poorer citizens, this freedom can be abruptly curtailed.

In the latest episode of Long Exposure, journalist Zuza Nazaruk discusses the neglected phenomenon of intra-EU deportations. Her investigation, in collaboration with Willemijn Sneep and Andrada Lautaru, reveals the flip-side of "freedom of movement", where homeless EU citizens are sent "back home" from the streets and shelters of Rotterdam to impoverished towns in Poland and Romania.

Listen to the full episode: https://balkaninsight.com/2025/11/06/the-deported-how-the-homeless-get-sent-home-within-the-eu/

Read the full story, published on Reporting Democracy and Balkan Insight

https://balkaninsight.com/2025/10/06/the-price-of-clean-streets-how-the-netherlands-deports-homeless-eastern-europeans/

12/11/2025

Pristina and Belgrade distrust the diocese in Kosovo. One sees it as an agent of Serbian nationalism; for the other, it is not nationalistic enough. The faithful in the Serb minority, however, prefer monks and priests to their politicians.

Read more: https://balkaninsight.com/2025/11/12/between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place-the-serbian-orthodox-church-in-kosovo-waits-out-the-storm-2/

Pristina and Belgrade distrust the diocese in Kosovo. One sees it as an agent of Serbian nationalism; for the other, it is not nationalistic enough. The faithful in the Serb minority, however, prefer monks and priests to their politicians.

31/10/2025

Ania runs an Instagram page that helps Polish mothers prepare for emergencies, not out of fear, but out of care for their families.

And Rafal is trying to reconnect his Warsaw neighbours, urging them to learn who among them could help in a crisis.

These are ordinary citizens who are quietly preparing for a crisis they hope will never come.

Decades of underinvestment in civil defence mean that fewer than 1% of Poles would have access to a public shelter in case of need, so “prepping” has become mainstream.

Read more:

Poland is the poster-child of Nato military spending but its patchy civil defences are pushing anxious citizens to build private bomb shelters and join online survivalist communities.

31/10/2025

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31/10/2025

Poland is the poster-child of Nato military spending but its patchy civil defences are pushing anxious citizens to build private bomb shelters and join online survivalist communities.

Check out our latest long read:

Poland is the poster-child of Nato military spending but its patchy civil defences are pushing anxious citizens to build private bomb shelters and join online survivalist communities.

27/10/2025

Balkan Insight readers, we want to hear your opinions. 📣
Fill out our short, anonymous survey 👇
https://balkaninsight.com/2025/10/27/share-your-opinion-help-us-shape-balkan-insights-future?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=survey2025&utm_content=organic_post and say what you like and dislike about our website. 👍👎
Let us know which kind of stories matter most to you – and what changes you’d like to see. 🗣
Your participation will help us deliver more uncompromising, cross-border journalism and stories that really matter. 💙

16/10/2025

From deadly train crashes to police assaults and wildfires, the Greek state bears its share of blame for destroyed lives and livelihoods – but good luck with getting it to own up and pay out.

11/10/2025

From deadly train crashes to police assaults and wildfires, the Greek state bears its share of blame for destroyed lives and livelihoods – but good luck with getting it to own up and pay out.

Read the story we published in cooperation with the News 24/7:

Σε κάθε ευνομούμενο κράτος η πολιτεία φέρει ευθύνη όταν από υπαιτιότητα των κρατικών οργάνων, ζημιώνονται οι πολίτες. Στην Ελλάδα, ωστόσο, η διεκδίκηση αποζημιώσεω...

11/10/2025

In 2011, during Greece’s anti-austerity protests, photographer Giannis Kafkas was severely beaten by riot police in Athens.

He spent ten days in a coma and sustained permanent injuries.

A Greek court ruled that the state must pay him €100,000 in compensation, but 14 years later, Kafkas has not received a single euro.

And Kafkas is not alone.

Victims of wildfires, train crashes, and police violence face the same system, one that drags cases for years, sometimes decades, refusing to admit fault or pay compensation.

Read the full investigation by Lina Kapetaniou and Janine Louloudi:

From deadly train crashes to police assaults and wildfires, the Greek state bears its share of blame for destroyed lives and livelihoods – but good luck with getting it to own up and pay out.

29/09/2025

Twenty years ago, a group of independent-minded journalists from the western Balkans began collaborating across countries that had just been at war. The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network is the result of that collaboration. Our founders were all women, and on this episode of Long Exposure, we hear from one of them – the former regional director of BIRN, Gordana Igric.

Gordana reflects on a long career in journalism and the media development sector, taking in the collapse of Yugoslavia and the subsequent struggle to build a strong, free press.

https://balkaninsight.com/2025/05/30/laying-the-foundations-gordana-igric-and-the-birth-of-birn/

Shared in honour of World News Day, the global campaign to highlight the value of honest, fact-based journalism.

More episodes of Long Exposure: Season One
https://balkaninsight.com/fellowship-for-journalistic-excellence/podcast/