Balkans

False asylum seekers could bring back EU visas for Serbia and other countries, warnings from Brussels said. As Serbian government officials delivered their answers to the EU questionnaire recently, they were told that a “concrete strategy to reduce the number of illegal immigrants needed to be created”. The European Union …

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini will visit Belgrade on Monday. Frattini will meet with Serbian President Boris Tadić, Deputy Prime Minister for EU Integration Božidar Đelić and Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić. The Italian FM will discuss with Serbian officials the country’s EU integration and regional cooperation, in light of the …

Bulgaria and Romania must take as much time as they need in order to get one hundred percent ready for joining the Schengen Area, which will probably not be just a few months, according to the French EU

Tens of thousands of people gathered on Saturday (February 5th) in front of the parliament building in Belgrade at a rally organised by the opposition Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). Its leader, Tomislav Nikolic, gave the government two months to call early elections or face the risk of continuous protests. SNS …

Anti-government rallies organised by the opposition in Tirana and three other cities ended on Friday (February 4th) without incident. According to the organisers, the demonstrations were attended by 100,000 people

Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov has called a political leaders’ meeting for Monday (February 7th), to discuss the current situation in the parliament following a boycott staged by the opposition. Opposition parties led by SDSM walked out of parliament last week to protest the freezing of the private A1 television channel’s …

The Netherlands and France have asked for a monitoring mechanism for the visa-free regime for BiH and Albania. In a letter sent to the European Commission (EC), the two countries said the time has come to introduce such a mechanism and sanctions should be imposed in case of abuses. Citizens …

Greek President Karolos Papoulias and his Cyprus counterpart Demetris Christofias on Thursday expressed hope that calm will prevail in Egypt and Cairo’s stand over issues of national interest to Athens and Nicosia will not change.

Albania’s Socialist opposition is expected to hold simultaneous rallies in four Albanian cities on Friday, in an effort to put pressure on the government of Prime Minister Sali Berisha and force early elections.

The Bundestag will ratify the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) between Serbia and the EU on February 10th, Michael Stubgen, head of a German parliamentary delegation, said on