Serbia with several other states protest the US and other states' recognition of Kosovo's declaration of its status as a sovereign and independent state in February 2008; ethnic Serbian municipalities along Kosovo's northern border challenge final status of Kosovo-Serbia boundary; several thousand NATO-led Kosovo Force peacekeepers under UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo authority continue to keep the peace within Kosovo between the ethnic Albanian majority and the Serb minority in Kosovo; Serbia delimited about half of the boundary with Bosnia and Herzegovina, but sections along the Drina River remain in dispute
dispute remains with Bosnia and Herzegovina over several small sections of the boundary related to maritime access that hinders ratification of the 1999 border agreement; since the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, Croatia and Slovenia have each claimed sovereignty over Piranski Bay and four villages, and Slovenia has objected to Croatia's claim of an exclusive economic zone in the Adriatic Sea; in 2009, however Croatia and Slovenia signed a binding international arbitration agreement to define their disputed land and maritime borders, which led to Slovenia lifting its objections to Croatia joining the EU; Slovenia continues to impose a hard border Schengen regime with Croatia, which joined the EU in 2013 but has not yet fulfilled Schengen requirements
Illicit drugs
transshipment point for Southwest Asian heroin moving to Western Europe on the Balkan route; economy vulnerable to money laundering
primarily a transit country along the Balkan route for maritime shipments of South American cocaine bound for Western Europe and other illicit drugs and chemical precursors to and from Western Europe; no significant domestic production of illicit drugs
Refugees and internally displaced persons
refugees (country of origin): 17,972 (Croatia), 8,198 (Bosnia and Herzegovina) (2019)
IDPs: 196,995 (most are Kosovar Serbs, some are Roma, Ashkalis, and Egyptian (RAE); some RAE IDPs are unregistered) (2021)
stateless persons: 2,144 (includes stateless persons in Kosovo) (2020)
note: 779,905 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-August 2021); Serbia is predominantly a transit country and hosts an estimated 6,165 migrants and refugees as of April 2021
stateless persons: 2,900 (2020)
note: 727,610 estimated refugee and migrant arrivals (January 2015-May 2021); flows slowed considerably in 2017; Croatia is predominantly a transit country and hosts about 340 asylum seekers as of the end of June 2018
