Balkan News

The OSCE mission in Albania and the US Embassy in Tirana welcomed President Bamir Topi’s initiative to organise negotiations between the government and the opposition in order to end an ongoing political stalemate. The opposition has been boycotting parliament since September, insisting on a thorough investigation into the June 2009 …

EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule will visit Macedonia on February 19th, Macedonia’s foreign ministry said on Thursday. Commissioner Fule will meet with Macedonia’s Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of EU integration Vasko Naumovski, and Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki. The newly-appointed EU enlargement chief took up his …

UN Special envoy on the name dispute between Athens and Skopje, Matthew Nimetz, will visit Greece in the last 10 days of February. Greek Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Grigoris Delavekouras stressed on Athens’ wish to find solution to the issue, which goes with the precondition for the other party in the …

High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, will pay a visit to Belgrade on February 18. Ashton took up the post from Javier Solana in December 2009 and officially stepped in office as First Vice President of the European Commission on February 9, 2010.

Croatia is ready to step up efforts to cooperate with the ICTY in order to be able to conclude EU accesson negotiations by the end of this year. Jadranka Kosor, the Croatian prime minister, said that efforts would be made to achieve better cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for …

Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger hopes for soon ratification of Stabilization and Association Agreement between Serbia and EU and start of accession talks by 2014 the latest. In his interview for Belgrade daily “Blic” he said that it’s not real all Western Balkan countries to join EU by 2014.

EU Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg kicks off his visit to Kosovo on Thursday. Commissioner Hammarberg will observe the situation of minorities in Kosovo, among which Serbs and Gorans. UN statistics said that last year a total of 2500 refugees returned to Kosovo. Among them were Roma people, who …

The financial woes of Greece and other eurozone member states are set to dominate Today’s EU summit in Brussels. Late on Wednesday, Europe’s underfire socialist leaders gathered to work out their response to the debt crisis.

The parliament of Bosnia’s Serb dominated entity, Republika Srpska, adopted a controversial law on referendum late on Wednesday. The law has been described by the international community as provocative and potentially unconstitutional.

The European Parliament (EP) approved a resolution by Slovenian lawmaker Zoran Thaler on Wednesday (February 10th) which recommended the EU to set dates for start of membership talks with Macedonia. The draft was supported by 548 lawmakers, 45 voted against it and 35 abstained. The document recommended that Macedonia quickly …