Balkans

The European Commission (EC) will not send a special mission to monitor the upcoming local election in Montenegro, the head of the EC delegation in Podgorica, Leopold Maurer, said on Friday (April 9th). The comment came after a request of the opposition Movement for Changes (PzP), which earlier asked the …

Slovakia will not change its stand on recognition of Kosovo, Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčak has told Kosovo Albanian officials. “We will not recognize it (Kosovo) and this remains our stand,” Lajčak said after a meeting with Skender Hyseni, appointed by the government in Priština as its foreign minister, late …

Bosnia will not get on the white Schengen list in July, experts of the EU and Bosnia working on the visa regime liberalization have agreed. Tanja Fajon, European Parliament rapporteur on visa liberalization in the Western Balkans, confirmed that visa liberalization is

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 …