Balkan News

EULEX insists on concrete evidence before it starts investigating Council of Europe Rapporteur Dick Marty’s allegations against former Kosovo Liberation Army members. “We have opened a preliminary investigation. Of

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will visit Serbia on April 19th, it was announced on Monday (April 11th) by diplomatic sources in Moscow. Belgrade will be the first leg of a Balkan tour that will include Montenegro, Slovenia and Macedonia.

The Macedonian parliament has selected Boris Kondarko for State Electoral Commission chairperson. Kondarko was nominated by the opposition Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), whose MPs did not attend the session, because they were boycotting the institutions’ work. The move fulfills all requirements for dissolving the parliament and organizing early …

The date of Bulgaria’s presidential and local elections will be decided through dialogue between MPs, President Georgi Parvanov announced on Tuesday. Parvanov spoke after holding consultations with the main political parties on the appointment of members of the Central Electoral Commission, CEC.

The EU’s top official on Tuesday called on Greece to keep up the “courageous” overhaul of its ailing economy, the source of widespread protests, in order to “preserve” the country’s future.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has decided to send observers to monitor the early elections in Macedonia. According to PACE President Mevlut Cavusoglu the organization decided to send observers although no official invitation had been received.

UN war crimes tribunal chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz visited Sarajevo on Monday (April 11th) for talks with BiH Presidency Chairman Nebojsa Radmanovic and BiH presidency member Bakir Izetbegovic. The visit preceded Brammertz’s report on co-operation by former Yugoslav countries that he is due to submit to the UN Security Council …

The European Parliament will vote a resolution on Bulgaria’s Schengen entry on June 4 2011, the EP rapporteur on the subject, Portuguese MEP Carlos Coelho, announced Monday in Brussels. “Bulgaria has covered the necessary technical criteria better than some of the states already in the Agreement,” Coelho said. He prepared …

Croatia’s president says the country could join the EU by January 2013, calling this an “ambitious, yet attainable goal”. “It’s very ambitious, because we are very close to concluding the negotiations. It takes a couple of months to prepare the treaties for signing, which will be followed by a possibly …

Macedonia needs to boost its reform process and reach a name agreement with Greece in order to avoid slowing down its EU bid, the head of the European Commission said during his visit to Skopje. “Now is the time to settle the name issue, and the new climate of confidence …