GREECE needs more time to implement tough financial reforms and spending cuts, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras says as he starts the first of a series of top-level European meetings to discuss his debt-ridden country’s international bail-out.

If it meets all the EU criteria, Serbia may be able to get a date for membership negotiations by July 2013, a senior EU official tells Balkan Insight.The European Commission’s latest opinion of Serbia’s progress will not be as positive as the one in 2011 – so Serbia is unlikely …

Three officials of Montenegro’s biggest opposition party met Democratic Front leaders to again explore the possibility of a united action against the government.Three officials of the opposition Socialist People’s Party, SNP, Milan Knezevic, Vera Bulatovic, and Vladislav Bojovic, met Miodrag Lekic, chair of the Democratic Front, on Wednesday to discuss …

Serbia’s new defence minister, Aleksandar Vucic, has headed to Russia for his first official visit, confirming the new government’s desire to firm up ties to the Kremlin.Aleksandar Vucic, Defence Minister and head of Serbia’s National Security Council, will meet on Wednesday with Russia’s Vice President in charge of defence, Dmirty …

The Hague Tribunal, ICTY, has refused the motion of the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to question the former US president Bill Clinton.The ICTY’s Trail Chamber decided that Karadzic could not prove in his motion that Clinton’s testimony would be necessary to the case, or that the information Karadzic …

Romania’s suspended President Traian Basescu is set to return to office within days after judges ruled an impeachment vote against him was invalid. The decision by the Constitutional Court still needs rubber-stamping by parliament on Friday. The court ruled against the referendum because turnout fell below the required 50 percent.

The Serb community in Croatia is divided over a dispute between the Croatian President Ivo Josipovic and Milorad Pupovac, the Serb minority representative in the Croatian parliament.Seven associations representing the Serbian minority in Croatia have declared their support for Ivo Josipovic, the Croatian President, in his dispute with Pupovac, the …

Kasim Dal, a former close ally of Bulgarian ethnic Turkish leader Ahmed Dogan, has indicated that he will form a new political party.Dal plans to form the party alongside independent MP Korman Ismailov. Both men were previously members of the ethnic Turkish party Movement for Rights and Freedoms, which is …

Constitutional Court decides by six votes to three that the result of an impeachment referendum against President Traian Basescu was invalid.By a majority of six votes to three, the judges of the court decided that the July 29 referendum on the President’s future was not valid because turnout did not …

For the first time, the University of Belgrade has found its place on the list of the 500 best universities in the world.After years of trying to enter the so-called Shanghai list, the University of Belgrade has finally won its place there – one of only two in the region. …