Albania is a constitutionally secular country in the western Balkans with a population of 2.8 million people.1“Albania”, World Bank Open Data. Accessed 1 July 2024, https://data.worldbank.org/country/albania According to the 2011 census, the religious demography of the country constitutes a Muslim majority (56.7%), Roman Catholic (10%), and Albanian Orthodox (6.8%). The […]

Andorra is a co-Principality with a democratic parliamentary system. The President of France and the Spanish Bishop of Urgell are co-princes of Andorra, who hold honorary positions as heads of state.1https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17028050 With a population of 78,000,2https://www.estadistica.ad/serveiestudis/web/index.asp?lang=4 Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion in the country and benefits from a privileged […]

Bosnia and Herzegovina pronounced independence in 1992, though the Bosnian War lasted well into 1995. There is a three-member Presidency, and a bicameral legislature in place. Religious, ethnic, and national identity are interconnected in the country, the majority of the population makes no critical distinction between ethnic/confessional/national identities.1https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2212&context=ree A researcher […]

Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia (Croatian: Republika Hrvatska), is a unitary, indivisible democratic, social, and parliamentary constitutional republic. After Croatia formally declared its independence and dissolved its association with Yugoslavia in 1991, the Croatian War of Independence started. The war ended in 1995. The present day borders of Croatia […]

Greece is a unitary parliamentary republic on the edge of the Balkan Peninsula, often regarded as the birthplace of democracy in Europe and a catalyst to western civilisation. The country has seen steady economic, social and legal changes in recent years with leftist government attempts towards secularisation of the country. […]

A limb of southern Europe stretching out into the Mediterranean, Italy is a nation whose Roman past penetrates deeply into European cultural history, and whose Renaissance prefigured the modern humanist movement. Despite this, the Catholic Church remains a predominant force in the country today. According to a 2021 study by […]

Kosovo is a multi-party democratic republic bordered by the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro and Serbia. Kosovo became a UN protectorate following the Kosovo War of 1999 with prolonged tensions and violence between its Albanian and Serb populations. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, Serbia continues to […]

Malta is a small, densely-populated island nation of 450,000 inhabitants, located in the Mediterranean Sea, south of Sicily. It is a parliamentary republic and member state of the European Union. Despite opposition from the Catholic Church, which remains hugely influential, Malta has seen significant progressive reforms in recent years including […]

Montenegro is – in terms of both its size and population – one of the smallest European states. After the collapse of the Yugoslav federation in 1989,1https://history.state.gov/countries/montenegro Montenegro remained a part of a smaller Federal Republic of Yugoslavia but voted in a referendum of 1992 in favour of federation with […]

Lying in the center of the Balkan Peninsula, the Republic of North Macedonia is a parliamentary democracy,1https://www.iri.org/iri-around-the-world/europe/north-macedonia/ and an independent state since 1991 (previously part of Yugoslavia). The country has a multi-party democratic system, and is officially a secular state. Experiencing a name change after a parliamentary vote in 2019, […]