Balkans

Trial of Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commander Ramush Haradinaj continued on Monday in the Hague Tribunal after three weeks. A protected witness said that “Armed Forces of the Republic of Kosovo (FARK)”, i.e. the 134th brigade had entered Kosovo in June 1998 to fight against Serbian paramilitary forces.

The Commission has confirmed reports that citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an EU hopeful for which Brussels lifted visa requirements in November 2010, could again be subjected to the cumbersome procedure, due to the large number of asylum-seekers from this country.

The Balkans will only become a permanently stable region when all the countries that comprised the former Yugoslavia are accepted as members of the European Union, Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister told the General Assembly. 

Bulgaria may receive its first gas deliveries from Azerbaijan in 2013, Economy and Energy Minister Traicho Traikov said after a meeting with his Azeri counterpart Natig Aliyev in Baku. Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH) and Greece’s power utility DEPA have pledged to complete the gas inter-connection between Bulgaria and Greece in …

Serbian customs officials are respecting the new deal on trade exports from Kosovo but Kosovo businesses have yet to take advantage of the new market, Kosovo Trade and Industry Minister Mimoza Kusari-Lila has said. Kusari-Lila said that seven trucks carrying Kosovo-made products had been allowed to enter Serbia, which had …

Albanian Foreign Minister Edmond Haxhinasto has asked the head of Libya’s National Transitional Council, Muhammad Jibril, to recognize Kosovo as an independent state, when the government is formed in Tripoli. Haxhinasto and Jibril met on Friday on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in …

Efforts to resolve the two-decade long name dispute between Macedonia and Greece have been overshadowed by escalating concerns over the Euro crisis. Gerald Knaus, head of the European Stability Initiative, ESI, a multi-national research and policy institute told Macedonian media that the Euro crisis had distracted

Serbia’s Prime Minister Mirko Cvetković has said that Serbia has fulfilled all conditions necessary to get the EU candidate status. He added, however, that Serbia would not give up on its state policy.

The European Commission’s report on Macedonia’s progress will be fair and based on facts and will cover the country’s achievements made in the past 12

The next round of talks between Belgrade and Pristina scheduled for next Wednesday will take place most probably. Belgrade keeps on insisting on a special status for North Kosovo. However, Brussels thinks it is impossible to give Kosovo a special status, but in future it might become something like an …