Balkans

“Slovenia is still an active partner for the European integration of Macedonia and this is confirmed by all political forums,” reads the response of Slovenian Foreign Minister Samuel Zbogar to a letter of Macedonian counterpart Antonio Milososki, who asked all EU foreign ministers to support the launching of the pre-accession …

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will inform EU foreign ministers about preparations for the Belgrade-Priština dialogue. She will also inform the ministers about the effort made by the union in order for that dialogue to take place. The announced dialogue is expected start in early 2011. Officials in Brussels …

Early results of the Kosovo elections show the party of Hashim Thaci has the lead, while Serb parties that participated accuse each other. The Priština-based Gani Bobi Institute said late on Sunday that Thaci’s Democratic Party of Kosovo had picked up 31 percent of the vote, followed by Isa Mustafa’s …

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou pledged to build a long-delayed mosque in Athens for Muslim residents, noting that failure to provide such a facility for over two decades was a “disgrace”.

High Representative Valentin Inzko urged the international community to remain pro-actively engaged with Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). After talks with Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger and German Secretary of State Wolf-Ruthart Born in Berlin on Friday (December 10th), he said that BiH needs to improve its decision making and to …

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said it is too early to talk about a possible date for Montenegro’s accession to NATO. In an interview with the daily Pobjeda on Saturday (December 11th), he urged authorities to focus on reforms. Montenegro was invited to join NATO’s membership action plan (MAP) in …

Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov and his Greek and Serbian counterparts, Dimitris Droutsas and Vuk Jeremic, have voiced support for the EU integration of Western Balkan countries. The three top diplomats met in Sofia on Saturday (December 11th). Mladenov said that Bulgaria and Greece, as EU members, have the historic …

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou on Friday spoke out strongly against Germany’s idea of sanctions against serial budget sinners, saying it would trigger a referendum in the country.

Conference on South East Europe will begin in Berlin tonight. The organizers point out that “stabilization of the Western Balkans and region’s integration into the Euro-Atlantic structures remains one of the main challenges of common European foreign and security policy”. 

The UN war crimes tribunal Wednesday (December 8th) cut the sentence of Veselin Sljivancanin, a former senior officer in the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA), from 17 to ten years in prison. He was found guilty of