Balkans

Forbes magazine has rated Slovenia and Macedonia as the best countries in the Balkans in which to do business. Serbia is rated worst.The US financial magazine in its annual list ranks Slovenia in 23rd position out of 141 analyzed countries worldwide. Macedonia is second in the Balkans, ranked in 37th …

Poor market conditions force Bucharest to change plans to sell a minority stake in the Transgaz gas companyRomania is to cancel plans to sell a 15-per-cent stake in the gas pipeline operator, Transgaz, as agreed with the International Monetary Fund, citing poor conditions on the stock market. “The stock market …

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras will reshuffle his cabinet once he secures a vital loan tranche to make his government more effective in a new wave of austerity measures demanded by international lenders, government officials said on Monday. Samaras will hold separate meetings with his two coalition partners, Socialist PASOK …

Bulgaria’s right-wing Democrats for Strong Bulgaria party (DSB) is to establish an initiative committee against the development of nuclear energy in the country through the construction of the Belene nuclear power plant project. DSB will thus take part in the ongoing debate surrounding the upcoming referendum that will decide the …

Serbian politicians believe that the acquittal of two Croatian generals by the Hague Tribunal will not contribute to reconciliation and European future of the region.Suzana Grubjesic, the Serbian deputy PM in charge of EU integration, said that the Hague Tribunal’s acquittal of the Croatian generals, Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac, …

A coalition of local NGOs dubbed “Coalition for Life” held a march on Sunday in Skoplje in order, as they say, to raise awareness amongst Macedonia’s youth about the importance of marriage and child bearing.Several thousand people brought their children along to attend the march in central Skopje, held just …

EULEX prosecutor accuses Fatmir Limaj, his two brothers and four other suspects of depriving the Kosovo budget of 2 million euro and of laundering another million euro.Kosovo’s former Minister of Transport, Fatmir Limaj, and six other defendants have been accused of depriving the country’s budget of over 2 million euro …

More than fifty years after his death in France, Albania’s former monarch, King Zog I, was laid to rest in Tirana on Saturday in a ceremony attended by political leaders and thousands of people.Zog was laid to rest in the recently reconstructed mausoleum of the royal family, where his wife, …

Romania’s leaders are at odds over whether the country has a right to threaten to veto EU budget changes at the upcoming European Council meeting.Romania is threatening to veto the EU budget if the European Commission’s planned cuts to the budget for the next seven years slash farming and development …

The verdict on Croatia’s former prime minister, Ivo Sanader, in the first of two trials for bribery will be delivered on November 20, presiding judge of County Court in Zagreb Ivan Turudic announced on Thursday.Sanader is charged with taking half a million euro in bribes from Austria’s Hypo bank in …