Balkans

European Parliament Rapporteur for Serbia, Jelko Kacin, said on Monday that along with EU candidate status, Serbia should also get a date for the beginning of negotiations. He pointed out, however, that in order to make progress in the Euro-integration process, the country needed to resolve the issue of Kosovo.

A delegation headed by Bulgarian Economy, Energy and Tourism Minister Traicho Traikov has ended a working visit to Uzbekistan. Traikov held meetings with Uzbek Economy Minister Galina Saidova and Foreign Economic Relations, Investments and Trade Minister Ravshan Gulyamov.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen says the situation in northern Kosovo and KFOR’s role will be one of the key topics of the NATO defence ministers’ meeting this week. The summit will be held in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.

Serbian Minister for Kosovo Goran Bogdanovic has called on KFOR and EULEX to protect the Serb community in Kosovo. He said that the fact that the international community kept silent about the killings was unacceptable.

European Commission (EC) report on Serbia has already been written and the Commission is now working out some minor details. The only part that is unfinished is the one that refers to Kosovo.

Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha will pay an official visit to Macedonia by the end of October. Berisha was supposed to visit Macedonia in May 2010 after an invitation by Macedonian Prime Minister Gruevski but the trip was cancelled

Today marks the one year since Bosnia and Herzegovina’s last general election and the 12th sucessive month that the country has had no newly formed government. In the meantime, the country, which is being run using a technical mandate outlined in the Dayton Constitution, faces plummeting foreign direct investment, rising …

The EU mediator in the negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina, Robert Cooper, will visit Serbia next week. The dialog with Pristina, which ceased after seven Serbs

The President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik has said Serbia’s response to the situation in North Kosovo should be much more vigorous. According to him Belgrade should insist on the separation of Kosovo’s northern region and its accession to Serbia.

Bulgaria is an important partner of Georgia and is seen as the shortest way the country can reach the EU, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has declared after meeting with Bulgaria’s PM Boyko Borisov. “Our two countries are very much alike – we have gone through