Balkans

A German MEP, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Co-chairperson of the Green-EFA Group, says Athens and Skopje must seek to solve the name issue as soon as possible. He said during a conference in Athens that Greece must find a compromise with its neighbouring country. He commented: “Macedonia is Macedonia. You may call it North, …

Bulgarian Agriculture Minister Miroslav Naydenov will meet with his Romanian counterpart Stelian Fuia in Ruse, a Bulgarian town. The Romanian and Bulgarian ministers will make a common statement after their meeting.

Greek socialists want to postpone the early parliamentary elections because of the NATO summit in Chicago, where Skopje’s accession in the Alliance will be one of the topics of the agenda. PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos said that the elections, which are set for May , should be postponed to June, …

European Parliament (EP) MPs will discuss on Wednesday resolutions on Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro. The resolutions (already been adopted as drafts by the EP Foreign Affairs Committee), are built using reports sent by rapporteurs to Committee members who made some amendments. The EU praised Belgrade for the efforts to speed …

Bosnia hopes to formally join Nato’s membership action plan during its May summit, a penultimate step to joining the alliance. Bosnian Defence Minister Muhamed Ibrahimovic said “We hope that during the Chicago summit, Bosnia-Hercegovina will join the membership action plan and that in September it will launch its first annual …

The EU started Informal discussions in Brussels with Montenegro and the introduction of EU laws to the Montenegrin negotiators. The meeting’s purpose is to familiarize Montenegrins with EU judiciary

The Cabinet of Serbian President Boris Tadic dismissed the rumors spread from media in Kosovo that Tadici will meet Hashim Thaci. Tadic’s cabinet rejected the possibilities for a meeting between the two.

On Monday night, the head of the Greek Communist Party (KKE), Aleka Papariga, said on a local TV station that Greece needs to leave both the Eurozone and the European Union. Papariga said that “developments in Greece will change the dynamic of our ties abroad,” stressing that the country would …

Belgium has ratified the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) between Serbia and the EU. The SAA is the framework for contractual relations between the EU and countries of the Western Balkans. The ratification was completed on March 20. Romania and Lithuania are the only EU members of the 27 which …

Chairman of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Presidency Bakir Izetbegović said the country can become an EU member in 8 to 10 years. He said the prediction is a realistic time-frame. “It is realistic if we act responsibly, if we do not keep making delays of several years which have put us last …