Balkan News

Elections are expected to be re-run in Prizren, Gjilan and Lipjan because of ‘serious fraud and vote stealing’ during the December 13 Kosovo mayoral run-off. The Election Commission on Appeals and Complaints, ECAC, has asked the Central Election Commission, CEC, to rerun the poll in these municipalities after investigations revealed …

Serbian President Boris Tadic travels to Stockholm on Tuesday to officially submit Serbia’s application for EU candidacy. The decision came after Tadic and the country’s Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic signed a request on Saturday night, in the name of the government, for EU candidacy.

Fully fledged membership of NATO and the European Union remains Macedonia’s top priority but the country will not accept blackmail from Greece in order to achieve these goals, Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski said. At a celebration of the 12th anniversary of his ruling VMRO-DPMNE party’s Union of Women, Gruevski said …

Moscow will ask the United Nations to control the work of international judges and prosecutores who are handling war crimes cases at Bosnia’s State Court after their mandate was recently extended by the top international envoy in the Balkan country. “Russia believes that the work of international jurists has to …

A mayor has finally been elected to Bosnia’s ethnically divided city of Mostar after a 14-month political deadlock was broken by the top international envoy in the country, Valentin Inzko. Bosnian Croat Ljubo Beslic’s election to the post was made possible by Inzko’s decision last week to change the city …

NATO’s Kosovo force, KFOR, will close 10 of its 28 military camps tarting from January. Some 4,500 soldiers will leave Kosovo, leaving KFOR with around 10,000 peacekeepers.

Today is really a significant day for Macedonia, for its citizens and for the European Union, said Macedonian President in his welcome speech at Gyueshevo border checkpoint. In his words the Schengen barrier is falling apart. The spiritual barriers between us are also symbolically falling apart, he said.

Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov arrived in the winter resort Bansko. The delegation of Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov is expected to arrive. Police presence is stepped up in every crossing in Bansko. The tête-à-tête meeting between the two presidents is expected to kick off at 12.00 pm.

The ethnical Bulgarians who live in Moldova are “an extra argument in favor of strengthening the relations between Moldovan-Bulgarian friendship in economic, social and cultural plan,” said acting Moldovan President and speaker of Moldovan Parliament Mihail Ghimpu at the meeting with Bulgarian Ambassador to the country Georgi Panayotov. According to …

Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov will pay Saturday a visit to Bulgaria at the invitation of Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov, Bulgaria Presidency’s press secretariat announced.