Balkan News

The European Commission’s Wednesday recommendation to grant a visa-free regime with the EU to Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, but not to Bosnia and Albania, has met strong criticism across the Balkans and elsewhere in Europe. Critics say the EU’s exclusion of Bosnia from the list sends a negative message to …

Macedonia will soon wrap up its judiciary reforms to ensure a recommendation to begin EU accession talks, senior Macedonian officials said Wednesday. At a joint press conference, Macedonian Deputy Prime Minister in Charge of European AffairsVasko Naumovski and Justice Minister Mihajlo Manevski vowed to speed up reforms.

In a move designed to lessen Eastern Europe’s dependence on Russian gas, Bulgaria and Greece have signed an agreement for the construction of an alternative gas pipeline in the region. The agreement comes on the heels of a Nabucco pipeline deal signed in Turkey on Monday. The Bulgarian state-owned Energy …

The European Commission proposed on Wednesday letting citizens of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, which have been promised eventual EU membership, travel to the European Union without visas from Jan. 1. The EU executive said it hoped to make a similar proposal for Albania and Bosnia by the middle of next …

Bosnia-Herzegovina will start issuing out biometric passports from January 1, 2010 to all its citizens, despite the fact that they will still have to have visas for most travels abroad. Bosnia`s Prime Minister Nikola Spiric presented the new biometric passport at a press conference in Sarajevo on Wednesday. The new …

The Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) sees the formula of its government as a political project for the European development of Bulgaria which can be supported by the rest of the parties in the 41st Parliament in the name of Bulgaria’s national interests and in accordance with …

SOFIA In times of crisis and when Europe’s trust in Bulgaria has been lost, the country needs pro-European reformist majority and not a one that legitimates the Euroskepticism. These are the words of Nadezhda Mihaylova, MEP of the Blue Coalition and former foreign minister of Bulgaria, said in Strasbourg, her …

Boiko Borissov’s party will govern Bulgaria without bringing other parties into a ruling coalition, it emerged after the first round of talks between the country’s right-wing parties on July 15 2009. Borissov’s party, the Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria (abbreviated as GERB in Bulgarian), which won the biggest …

BANJA LUKA Clashes are possible in Bosnia if the work of state institutions is blocked and the Office of the High Representative closes, warns SDA leader Sulejman Tihić. In an interview with Banja Luka daily Nezavisne Novine, Tihić said that he did not know why his earlier statements had caused …

PREŠEVO Interior Minister Ivica Dačić says that the explosion in Preševo where a woman and an ethnic Albanian child were injured was “a classic act of terrorism.“ One person has been arrested on suspicion of smuggling arms from Kosovo.