Balkan News

Cabinet expected to agree on Wednesday to partly terminate the military mission to the NATO-led force in Afghanistan.The Bulgarian decision will be made in accordance with the strategy for the transformation of participation in the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, which the government in Sofia adopted at the end of 2011. …

EU-led talks between Belgrade and Pristina ended on Tuesday without much progress on a recent border management deal.Talks on implementing the “Integrated Border Management Agreement” and preparing for the next round of the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia on January 17 ended inconclusively on Tuesday. Following a meeting of the …

The highest number of people who sought asylum in Germany in 2012 came from Serbia, recent German foreign ministry data show.Data from the German Foreign Ministry show that 8,477 of the 64,539 people who requested asylum in Germany in 2012 came from Serbia, ranking the country first in the list …

The parents of five victims in the politically-charged case gave emotional testimony at a Skopje court as they faced those accused of killing their sons.The parents of five victims in the politically-charged case gave emotional testimony at a Skopje court as they faced those accused of killing their sons.With tears …

Parliament’s constitutional committee was to discuss changes intended to bring EU accession closer but instead agreed to close its doors to press and public.Committee members adopted the closed-door policy at their first session on Tuesday, suggesting that it would stop the talks being manipulated for political advantage during the upcoming …

The Constitutional Court may look again at banning SNP Nasi after its members torched a provincial flag and put up posters calling NGOs and media foreign agents.Vladimir Cvijan, head of parliament’s committee on constitutional affairs and a member of the presidency of the ruling Progressive Party, said the Constitutional Court …

For the first time, Belgrade will pay compensation to a Bosniak who was held in a Serbian prison camp after fleeing from the fall of Srebrenica in 1995.In the landmark decision, a Belgrade court has awarded around 5,000 euros to Mujo Vatres, a Bosniak from the town of Zepa near …

Refugees from Kosovo living in containers at a camp in Montenegro’s capital staged a demonstration to demand power supplies.”This is not life – without electricity, it’s like we are in prison,” one of the refugees told journalists in front of the headquarters of the EU delegation in Montenegro’s capital Podgorica …

Croatia’s Zoran Milanovic will arrive in Belgrade on Wednesday on a visit aimed at improving the currently tense relations between the two countries.Milanovic will meet his counterpart, Ivica Dacic, on his first official visit to Belgrade, after ties deteriorated following the election of a new government in Serbia last year. …

Several fiscal bodies are to merge into one, in a bid to improve efficiency and lighten the load on companies struggling under the weight of numerous inspections.Romania’s centre-left government plans to merge several fiscal authorities into a single structure in a move to reform the tax system and increase the …