Balkans

The Bulgarian parliament has approved the government’s 2009 budget based on expected economic growth of 4.7 percent, a rate widely criticised as unrealistic amid the global economic slowdown. The budget plans a surplus of 3 percent of gross domestic product, but also raises social and capital spending which analysts have …

Bulgaria is not preventing an association of Macedonians in Bulgaria from registering as a political party but they instead are refusing to do so, Bulgaria’s Prime Minister claims. Sergey Stanishev was referring to the OMO Ilinden Pirin organisation and made the comments during an official visit to Macedonia in which …

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis pledged on Tuesday to tackle corruption after 11 days of violence triggered by the police killing of a teenager and fueled by public anger at scandals and a slowing economy. About 100 youths attacked a police station in Athens, setting fire to …

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Economic Minister Shamseddin Hosseini and Bosnian Minister of Foreign Trade Mladen Zirojevic in a meeting here in Tehran on Monday explored avenues to expand mutual trade and economic relations. Iran seeks ways to boost cooperation with Bosnia in various sectors like banking, foreign investment, privatization, etc., he …

osovo’s Interior Minister Zenun Pajaziti says Serb officers will return to Kosovo’s Police force now that the European Union law-and-order mission, EULEX, has deployed. Ethnic Serb police officers left their posts in protest against Kosovo’s declaration of independence in February of this year. However, Pajaziti believes that they will all …

“The European Union is not neutral on Kosovo as 22 member states have made clear their position on Kosovo,” argues Soren Jessen Petersen, the former chief of UN Mission in Kosovo. “It is clear that Kosovo is independent and this fact cannot be changed. Kosovo is in the phase of …

Enis Imamovic, the spokesman for the Bosniak Ticket for European Sandzak, says party leader and minister without portfolio, Sulejman Ugljanin is a man of his word and will provide pledged aid to his home town. He told a press conference that Ugljanin would focus all his assistance on improving the …

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek police fired teargas at small groups of protesters who threw stones and firebombs in central Athens Monday in a second week of anti-government demonstrations since a policeman shot dead a teen-ager. Youths outside Athens’ main court and central police station clashed with riot police, while acts …

Dismayed by the parliamentary speaker’s decision to prolong Monday’s session, opposition lawmakers spent four hours citing breaches in the parliamentary code instead of debating laws. The session ended at 0200 in the morning on Tuesday, with little ground being covered in the debates needed for a set of important judiciary …

Corruption in Bosnia is of “humongous proportions” and the governments’ anti-corruption efforts are “disappointing,” the top international envoy to Sarajevo has said. Bosnia’s High Representative Miroslav Lajcak has said that all aspects of corruption – including bribery, fraud, nepotism, tax evasion and all others – are present in the country.