Balkans

Croatian President Ivo Josipović has said that Serbia could only benefit from Croatia’s EU accession. “Serbia can only benefit from the fact that Croatia will become a member of the European Union in a year and a half, since it

European Union Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele has praised Montenegro for being an open and reliable partner, setting clear priorities and creating, what he termed, ‘an unbelievably inclusive framework for addressing the enlargement process challenges’.

The foreign ministers of Bulgaria, Romania and Greece sent a joint letter to EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule and regional policy Commissioner Johannes Hahn on Thursday proposing a strategy to speed up the integration of countries from the Western Balkans. The three main objectives of the ministers’ joint strategy are: …

NATO peacekeeping troops and EULEX offcers have re-established traffic control on a makeshift bypass road erected near the Kosovo-Serbia border in Jarinje. In a joint operation conducted this morning, peacekeeping troops, known as KFOR, and EULEX officers, set up a vehicle check-point on the bypass road in Jarinje, for vehicles …

Northern Kosovo will not be discussed between representatives of the Serbian and Kosovo governments at the forthcoming round of EU-mediated talks, Edita Tahiri, Kosovo’s deputy prime minister, told reporters today. Speaking after a morning meeting with Robert Cooper, the EU’s dialogue facilitator, Tahiri expressed

The Nabucco gas pipeline, meant to wean Europe off of its dependency on Russian gas, could become operational a year later than planned, in 2018, stakeholder OMV said Tuesday. Gerhard Roiss, CEO of the Austrian oil and gas giant, told the Austria Press Agency the first gas deliveries to Europe …

US Vice President Joe Biden will visit debt-riddled Greece and Turkey, a vital American ally in the Middle East, on a major overseas trip in early December, the White House said Monday. Washington has been issuing increasingly stark warnings on the extent to which the eurozone crisis, which risks being …

The European Union’s military mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina is to be drastically reduced in size, the bloc’s foreign ministers agreed on Monday. The EU’s Althea mission currently has about 1,300 troops at its disposal – 30 per cent less than what is foreseen in its operational mandate – diplomats …

Croatian and Montenegrin presidents Ivo Josipovic and Filip Vujanovic have said that bilateral relations between the two countries are very good and could serve as a model to other countries in the region. The pair were speaking after an hour-long meeting in Zagreb on Monday.

Political and military leaders from NATO have praised a new US defence system installed in Europe saying it will help protect the Balkans as well the US. “The anti-missile shield installed by the United States in Europe is efficient, as recent tests show, and a good investment,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen, …