Balkans

Russia’s Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko says Austria will join the Russian-backed South Stream gas pipeline project in April. Russian news agencies are quoting Shmatko as saying Thursday that this would be the final deal before construction begins later this year.

Serbian President Boris Tadić says that he and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg agreed that “information that Bosnia is threatened by war” was untrue. “This isn’t about any sort of war, the situation is being overdramatized, I don’t know to what end. The problems should be identified through a …

Turkey and Greece on Thursday announced a series of measures to build confidence between the two neighbors. The deal was reached in the course of the meeting between Greek Alternate Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas and Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. The five measures include joint educational programs

The Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, has refused wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic’s request to issue “a stay of proceedings” in his case.

EU President Herman van Rompuy on Wednesday confirmed the bloc’s commitment to providing financial assistance to Greece if the country fails to raise the money it needs from bond markets.

Kosovo finished the European Commission’s questionnaire on trade relations with the EU and sent the report to Brussels on Wednesday (April 7th), a week earlier than scheduled. The 217 questions deal with mechanisms that regulate trade, legislative regulations, customs, public procurement and economic competition.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg has arrived in Belgrade on the third stop of his Balkan tour, and he met this morning with Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Ivica Dacic. During his meetings with local officials, Steinberg is expected to “convey to Serbia’s officials Washington’s support …

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos stated in Sarajevo that the Western Balkans and Bosnia-Herzegovina were high on EU’s priority list. After talking to Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Foreign Minister Sven Alkalaj, the Spanish FM, whose country is presiding over the EU, repeated that the EU-Western

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said that he is concerned over Priština’s new policies towards northern Kosovo. He called on the Kosovo Albanian government to “carefully implement” its new strategy for that part of the territory, which has a majority ethnic Serb population. “I am concerned because of the possible …

Greek Alternate Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas is due to arrive in Ankara on Thursday and meet with Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. The talks are expected to focus on open issues between the two countries as well as the marking of the sea border.