Balkan News

The mission of Canadian troops in BiH officially ended on Monday (March 29th) with five officers and one non-commissioned soldier returning home. Canadian Ambassador to BiH Pierre Guimond noted at a ceremony in Sarajevo that Canada was among the first countries to send peacekeepers. He said that BiH is moving …

Representatives of the EU, the OSCE and the Council of Europe on Monday (March 29th) voiced their willingness to help Serbia in its decentralisation process. At the opening of a two-day conference in the Serbian parliament, President Boris Tadic said that decentralisation is one of the main challenges facing Serbia …

US troops handed over management of the borderline between Kosovo and Macedonia to the Kosovo Police on Monday (March 29th). KFOR said this proves the commitment and willingness of the police to take on greater responsibility for providing security to Kosovo citizens. The hand-over comes as NATO considers downsizing the …

Bulgaria and Romania’s EU accession in January 2007 was accompanied by a monitoring mechanism aiming to guide those countries’ progress in the field of law enforcement, but Croatia should join the Union without such a tool, Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy Commissioner Stefan Fule said.

The Serbian parliament is expected to today in Belgrade vote on the draft declaration condemning the Srebrenica crime. The draft is supported by 114 MPs of the ruling coaling from the DS-led group, and G17 Plus, PUPS and the Socialist Party of Serbia.

Hungarian foreign minister Peter Balazs said that is unrealistic to expect that all western Balkan countries would be eligible to join the European Union by 2014, as proposed by Greece. Hungary, however, remains prepared to help towards the region’s future European integration, the minister said during a meeting in Budapest …

The Australian High Court ruled today that suspected war criminal Dragan Vasiljkovic, known as Captain Dragan, can be extradited to Croatia to face trial for alleged war crimes. The High Court overturned an earlier Federal Court decision that Vasiljkovic cannot be extradited because of the possibility that he will not …

A two-day meeting of the EU-Croatia Joint Parliamentary Committee kicks off on Monday (March 29th) in Zagreb. Lawmakers will discuss Croatia’s EU integration process, judicial reforms and the fight against corruption and organised crime, as well as regional co-operation. Members of the European Parliament will meet with President Ivo Josipovic …

Italian Ambassador to Kosovo Michael Giffoni does not rule out the possibility of co-operation between the EU presence in the north and Serbs representing parallel structures there. In an interview with the Pristina-based daily Koha Ditore on Monday (March 29th), Giffoni said he will implement an EU plan aimed at …

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić will meet with his Hungarian, Greek and Croatian counterparts in Budapest on Monday. The main topic of the talks will be the regional stabilization process and the EU integration of the Western Balkans, the minister announced. “A meeting between Hungary, Greece, Croatia and Serbia will …