Balkan News

Serbian Defense Minister Dragan Šutanovac said that Serbia’s entrance into NATO is not being discussed currently, and won’t be any time soon. “No one is setting NATO as a condition for joining the EU, although, all countries who have become member of the European family recently were first members of …

Former Prime Minister and President of FYROM, Branko Crvenkovski, has urged Bulgaria to recognize the existence of a “Macedonian nation.” Crvenkovski, who is the Chair of the Macedonian Social-Democratic Union, and was President of Macedonia in 2005-2009, met Thursday with the acting Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov, and with the leader …

The presidents of Serbia, Croatia and Hungary have started their meeting today in Pecs, Hungary. Boris Tadić, Ivo Josipović and Laszlo Solyom will address journalists afterwards. The three presidents would discuss specific forms of cooperation.

The Bulgarian nationalist party VMRO is making formal steps to call a referendum on Turkey’s EU accession. On Friday, the party will formally notify the Parliament on its intention to start collecting signatures in order to request the holding of a national referendum, as required by law.

Council of Europe (CoE) Secretary-General Thorbjorn Jagland praised the reforms implemented in Serbia during a visit to the country Wednesday (April 14th). He announced that the CoE’s Committee of Ministers has decided to

Slovenia’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Milan Balazic says Slovenia has no more reservations concerning the opening and closing of negotiation chapters in Croatia’s accession talks with the EU.

The government announced plans Wednesday to allocate around 4m euros for implementation of a strategy to put northern Kosovo under the control of Pristina rather than Belgrade-backed parallel structures.

The reforms for the country’s EU accession have been seriously delayed, which is dangerous for the future of the country, said Radmila Sekerinska, chairperson of the Macedonian National Council for European Integration and MP from the oppositional Social Democratic Union for Integration (SDSM).

Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov will meet Thursday with Branko Crvenkovski, President of the Republic of Macedonia in the period 2004-2009, the President’s press secretariat informed. The meeting will take place at 11:00 a.m. local time.

A realistic date for Serbia to acquire a status of EU candidate-country is June 2011, Deputy Prime Minister for EU Integration Bozidar Djelic said. In an interview with Novosti daily, Djelic said the EU