Balkans

He stressed that Serbia would not join NATO. The minister explained that Serbia would continue to develop good cooperation with everybody within the Partnership for Peace program. Vučić and Ashenhurst stressed the importance of cooperation in the State Partnership Program which is mutually important and useful in all segments of …

The Education Ministry in the larger of Bosnia’s two entities has unveiled a two-year plan to end the phenomenon of ‘two schools operating under one roof’ and unite children of different ethnic groups.The Education Ministry of the mainly Bosniak and Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina has presented a solution …

Bulgaria meets the necessary criteria to join the Schengen Agreement, according to European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. According to the EC President, the Schengen issue should be decided in favor of Bulgaria.

Macedonia’s government is mulling recommendations from the OSCE’s election body, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, ODIHR, that ministers stop abusing their official positions during election campaigns.The ODIHR says that during election campaigns, ministers should perform only “technical duties”, and not appear at public events such as openings …

More than half of the Twitter followers of Albanian opposition Socialist leader Edi Rama are fake accounts, analysis has revealed.According to the Fake Follower Check application, 55 per cent of Rama’s 32,874 followers on Twitter are spam accounts, 34 per cent are inactive and only 11 per cent are considered …

The President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, will be on an official one-day visit to the Bulgarian capital on 31 August. His schedule hosts events such as the opening ceremony of the second metro diameter of Sofia Metro which was partly financed through European funds, and meetings with …

The Bulgarian government decided during its meeting on 29 August to establish a new national mechanism to coordinate the activities for the implementation of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region*. The establishment of the national mechanism corresponds to the requirements of good governance and effective institutional cooperation and partnership …

Croatia will be divided statistically into two regions from next year, instead of three, to better exploit EU funds worth almost 14 billion euro by 2020, the government announced.Regional development and EU funds minister Branko Grcic said on Wednesday that establishing two statistical regions, Continental and Adriatic, instead of the …

Bosnia’s main Croat parties have presented their proposals for constitutional changes to meet EU demands – but a group of non-governmental organizations has deemed them irresponsible.The Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, one of six ruling parties in Bosnia’s state government, sent its list of proposed amendments to the Bosnian constitution on …

Albania’s new President, Bujar Nishani, is to start his first state visit on Wednesday in neighouring Kosovo.In his three-day visit to Kosovo, President Nishani is expected to hold meetings with Pristina’s political leaders, including President Atifete Jahjaga, the speaker of parliament Jakup Krasniqi and Prime Minister Hashim Thaci.