Romania and Bulgaria’s hopes of joining Europe’s huge passport-free zone were again dashed on Wednesday as EU officials said there was no consensus on letting in the poor eastern states. “There will be no vote, and no decision” at talks on their bid to join due to be held Thursday …

Turkey and Greece are determined to resolve and “bury” longstanding disputes over the island of Cyprus, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says. Greece has “a strong will for a solution” and wants to talk about ways to achieve important results for the stability, peace and security of the region,” …

Pristina staged a lavish ceremony to mark the 15th anniversary of the killings of Kosovo Liberation Army commander Adem Jashari and his family.Hundreds of security troops paraded in the capital on Tuesday as political leaders recalled the role that Jasheri, one of the founders of the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, …

A new survey suggests that a considerable majority of Serbian citizens, however reluctantly, accept that Kosovo is now an independent country.A new poll shows that about 63 per cent of Serbian citizens accept that Kosovo is in practice an independent state – and that Serbia can only fight now to …

Former officials suggested that heightened political tensions ahead of this month’s local elections helped to spark violent, ethnically-charged protests in Skopje.Some former leading Macedonian government figures blamed current political leaders for fanning ethnic intolerance which spilled over into street clashes with riot police on Friday and Saturday, but said they …

Balkan Insight has learned that the Constitutional Court will give the green light to a historic request for a referendum on trash imports, the first such grassroots initiative in Albania.The request, spearheaded by a group of activists, environmentalists and intellectuals, has collected more than 64,000 signatures, and calls for the …

Hannes Swoboda, President of the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group in the European Parliament, has described as “populist and deceitful” Germany’s threat to veto Bulgaria and Romania’s Schengen accession. According to EurActiv, Swoboda has insisted that progress has been assessed in both countries and EU ministers

Strengthening of Kazakh-Romanian cooperation was high on the agenda of a meeting between Secretary of State of the Republic of Kazakhstan Marat Tazhin and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Romania in Kazakhstan Mr. Nicolae Ureche on March 5.

The Minister of Labor and Social Policy, the Minister of Economy and Finance, and a Minister of EU Funds will be Deputy-PMs in Bulgaria’s future caretaker government, stated Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev. Tuesday it became certain that President Rosen Plevneliev will have to

Ahead of the sixth round of EU-led talks in Brussels, Serbian leaders say the outlines of a compromise solution to the vexed issue of nothern Kosovo are within sight.Ivica Dacic, Serbia’s Prime Minister, and his Kosovo counterpart, Hashim Thaci, are to continue their talks on the future of Serbian-financed institutions …