Russia is ready to extend a credit to Serbia and considers giving a loan to Bulgaria, Russian Deputy PM and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told journalists after a meeting with the finance ministers of the two countries in Istanbul where the IMF and World Bank hold an annual session.

Greece’s new cabinet will be announced on Tuesday after PASOK won Sunday’s early elections. On Monday the socialist party PASOK leader Georgios Papandreou will receive a mandate from President Karolos Papoulias to form a new government. According to some sources the new government scheme could be made public as early …

Serbia’s attempts to block Kosovo’s participation in regional initiatives could paralyse regional policies, according to a leaked European Commission, EC, report. This according to a report on Balkan countries involved in the EU enlargement process, to be issued in Brussels on October 14.

The upcoming change in government in Greece may act to break the current impasse in the Athens-Skopje name talks, Macedonian observers predict. Outgoing Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis has resigned as New Democracy leader after his party suffered an outright defeat in Sunday’s general election to the rival Pan-Hellenic Socialist …

Around 700,000 public servants launched a strike on Monday in protest at the government’s decision to cut salaries and jobs in the public sector. Policemen, local authority workers, clerks, doctors, nurses, teachers, social-insurance personnel, public-finance clerks and prison guards have joined what has been called the largest protest in the …

Blaze Ristovski, the chief editor of the controversial Macedonian encyclopaedia, which enraged the country’s ethnic Albanians, is resisting government pressure to resign. Upon its publication in September, the state-funded tome, prepared by the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, MANU, came under fire domestically and in neighbouring states for describing …

Macedonia has praised the Irish yes vote on the Lisbon treaty, saying its adoption will have a positive impact on EU enlargement prospects. The positive outcome would mean “a positive climate for the continuation of one of the most successful EU projects, the enlargement process, that spreads the zone of …

EU Special Representative to Kosovo Pieter Feith has called on all Kosovo citizens, especially the Serbs, to vote in the coming local elections on November 15. Speaking at a meeting titled “Independent Kosovo and the EU” in Vienna yesterday, he welcomed the fact that an increasing number of Serb political …

Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci supports the idea of appointing a European special envoy for the north of Kosovo, according to local media. Thaci said that the appointment of Italian Ambassador to Kosovo Michael Giffoni as the EU envoy in the north shows that Brussels is eager to stabilize the …

The Transnistrian delegation to the Joint Control Commission (JCC) opposed the inclusion of the method of arming the military organizations not affiliated to the peacekeeping forces in the security zone. The Transnistrian delegation to the Joint Control Commission (JCC) opposed the inclusion of the method of arming the military organizations …