Croats will elect their first 12 MEPs on April 14, President Ivo Josipovic announced on Friday.Josipovic has scheduled European parliamentary elections in Croatia under a law which says Croatia should elect European MPs before it joins the European Union on July 1. The country has the right to 12 MPs …

Serbia has massively increased the permitted level of aflatoxins in milk, posing a potential threat to the country’s dairy exports.Serbia has raises the maximum permitted concentration of aflatoxins in milk to 0.5 micrograms per kilo from 0.05 micrograms – a tenfold increase. Goran Knezevic, the Agriculture Minister, said the government …

General election all but inevitable, if as seems likely the ethnic Turkish party refuses to form a government.Bulgarians will go to the polls on May 12, President Rosen Plevneliev announced on Thursday in a special address to parliament. The date is predicated on the likely refusal of the ethnic Turkish-dominated …

Macedonian political parties on Friday reached a deal ending months of political deadlock and an opposition boycott of Parliament that had threatened the country’s efforts to join the European Union and NATO. In a deal brokered by EU officials, conservative Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski

Mr. Dimitrios Kourkoulas, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece will visit Baku on 6-8 March, 2013. He will meet with members of the Government of Azerbaijan, according to the Greek Embassy in Azerbaijan. He will also lead a business delegation which will participate in the Greek-Azerbaijani business forum.

PM says media reports of supplying weapons to Syrian rebels have compromised safety of troops.Croatia said on Thursday that it was about to withdraw its soldiers stationed on the Golan Heights as part of a UN force, after a US newspaper reported said that Syrian rebels battling the regime of …

Brussels wants to know why new local authority HQs in Gracanica and Klokot are months behind schedule.The European Commission is looking at why construction of municipal buildings it funded in two Serbian communities is months overdue amid a legal dispute between the contractor and sub-contractor. “The case does not involve …

A group of NGOs on Wednesday warned that Albania’s institutions are failing to notify voters of their presence on preliminary electoral rolls ahead of the June parliamentary elections.“The government is blatantly omitting its legal obligation to inform voters of their presence of the electoral lists and the voting booth where …

The latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, a think tank, entitled “Bosnia’s Dangerous Tango: Islam and Nationalism”, warns of the danger of a fusion between Bosniak nationalism and Islam. “Political Islam is a novelty in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and its rise is seen as threatening to secular parties …

The EU Enlargement Commissioner said Bosnia needs to meet its obligations under the EU road map, especially in connection with the Sejdic-Finci ruling. Stefano Sannino, European Commissioner for Enlargement, told Nermin Niksic, the Prime Minister of Bosnia’s Federation entity, that Brussels supports Bosnia’s further EU progress. The two officials discussed Bosnia’s …