Balkans

Serbia’s dinar currency hit a record low on Monday, with its official middle exchange rate at 95.4564 dinars to the euro, a drop of some seven percent this year. Other emerging market currencies such as Hungary’s forint, Romania’s leu and Poland’s lek have suffered since the onset of the global …

Macedonia’s main opposition party, the Social Democrats, on Monday proposed university professor and former Foreign Minister Ljubomir Frckoski as the party’s candidate for the March 22 presidential election. The party will formalize Frckoski’s candidacy on a convention later during the day, Social Democrats acting President Zoran Zaev told reporters at …

Serbia will never make it into the European Union if it keeps trying to sabotage Kosovo’s newly-declared independence and territorial integrity, Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said in an interview. In an interview with Austrian daily Der Standard, Thaci said Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia last February, wanted “good …

Kosovo’s public servants and pensioners will get a pay rise next month, with civil servants receiving a 10 percent increase, while pensioners, people on social assistance and war veterans and their families will get a 12 percent increase. Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said the hike is in accordance with …

Serbia’s Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic will meet Dutch officials in Brussels on Monday in a bid to “unblock Serbia’s European path”, with the goal of starting EU membership talks in early 2010. The Netherlands refuse to allow an interim trade deal – part of the suspended Stabilisation and Association Agreement …

Albanian officials from the Presevo region in southern Serbia have sent a letter of protest to Belgrade demanding the immediate release of a group of ethnic Albanians accused of war crimes against Serbs, as well as the pullout of Serbian special security forces from the area. The 10 men were …

Two explosions caused material damage in the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica in north Kosovo on Saturday night, police said. Mitrovica — divided between Serbs in the north and Albanians in the south — has been the scene of protests, occasional clashes and bomb attacks since Kosovo’s Albanian majority declared …

The EU delegation head in Tirana, Helmut Lohan, said that the upcoming June 28 general election will be considered by Brussels as a litmus test for Albania’s bid to join the union. Albania has yet to hold elections that meet international standards, with all six general elections since the collapse …

A report released on Wednesday by the Council of Europe lauds Albania’s improvements of pre-trial detention conditions and detainee treatment, but says the government still needs to redouble its efforts. “Improvements in various areas, in particular, in contrast to the findings made during previous visits, nevertheless, a number of credible …

A Vienna-based media watchdog said it was “deeply concerned” about the current media environment in Kosovo, and cited a string of recent brutal attacks on journalists. The South East Europe Media Organization, SEEMO, said it had been monitoring attacks on journalists, which brought into question press freedom in the newly-independent …