Balkans

The parliamentary committee on the constitution has agreed on almost all proposed amendments, the sole exception being the controversial issue of the expatriate vote, committee chairman Vladimir Seks said on Tuesday (May 18th). That one amendment has been the subject of lengthy negotiations between the ruling Croatian Democratic Union and …

At the initiative of the MEP from the Group of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, Evgeni Kirilov, Bulgarian MEPs (representatives of all political parties – Bulgarian Socialist Party, Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria, Blue Coalition, National Movement for Stability and Progress, Movement for Rights

The Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office has called for an investigation to begin at a mass grave site in the southwestern Serbian town of Raska. Ten days ago Serbia announced that with the help of the EU rule of law mission in Kosovo, EULEX, it had uncovered a mass grave …

Prosecutors at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal say Serbia has sent the court a bundle of diaries written by Bosnian Serb wartime military commander General Ratko Mladic. They have filed a motion seeking to have the notebooks included as evidence in the case against Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb wartime …

The conference cycle titled, “Ohrid talks“, which represent the continual bilateral meetings for exchange of opinions and experiences between representatives of Interior Ministries from Republic of Macedonia and German province of Brandenburg, is due to begin on Wednesday in Ohrid.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, on Wednesday is set to deliver the final verdict in the case of former Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boskoski and police officer Johan Tarculovski. Boskoski and Tarculovski are the only people from Macedonia to be indicted by the UN war crimes …

The Bulgarian nationalist party VMRO and its partner cable TV channel SKAT have collected 200 000 signatures in support of their demand for a nation-wide referendum on Turkey’s EU accession. The VMRO press center announced Tuesday that the signatures were collected in one month, and that the initiative of the …

Police in Bosnia and Herzegovina have arrested two individuals, including one police officer, on suspicion of war crimes. Milan Peric (1961) and Slavko Lalovic (1959) are suspected of crimes committed in 1992 in the area of Kalinovik, in eastern Herzegovina.

The OSCE office in Tirana announced on Monday (May 17th) that it has a compromise that would end the longstanding political crisis. Last week, OSCE Ambassador Robert Bosch said that a proposal had been presented to both the government and opposition Socialist Party (SP). While Prime Minister Sali Berisha has …

Kosovo’s Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said on Monday (May 17th) that he is “very happy” with the ongoing co-operation between the government and the EULEX mission. Thaci met with EULEX chief Yves de Kermabon and the outgoing head of the mission’s justice component, Alberto Perduca, who praised the government’s commitment …