Balkans

The EU has expressed its appreciation to Montenegro for the stabilising role it has played in the Western Balkans. During a two-day visit by Podgorica’s chief diplomat Milan Rocen, the Spanish EU presidency expressed hopes that Montenegro’s Stabilisation and Association Agreement will come into force at the Stabilisation and Association …

Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčak said that EU representative in Kosovo Pieter Feith can continue to represent the EU in Kosovo.

UN special envoy on the name dispute between Macedonia and Greece, Matthew Nimetz, arrived in Macedonia on Tuesday for a new round of consultations with the country’s top officials. “I expect a lot,” mediator Nimetz said, adding that he is doing his outmost to help resolution of the dispute. Mediator …

Bulgaria can join the Euro area in 2013. This is what President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek said after the meeting with the Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov. Expectedly the economic crisis was among the issues discussed during the meeting between the Bulgarian President and the President of the EP. …

A Council of Europe, CoE, delegation that intervened to solve Albania’s ongoing political crisis urged on Tuesday the country’s opposition and the government majority to end the stalemate.

The European Commission adopted Monday a proposal to prolong the exceptional autonomous trade preferences which the European Union grants to Western Balkan countries until 2015, the Commission’s press service informs. The aim of this proposal is to ensure that Western Balkan economies continue to benefit from an unlimited duty free …

The conference, organised by the Dutch government and the Sanela Diana Jenkins Human Rights Project at University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, aims to open the floor to different actors to talk about the Tribunal’s achievements in promoting rule of law, peace and justice in the former Yugoslavia, …

Croatian President Ivo Josipovic said that the most contentious points in Serbian-Croatian relations are a border issue and problems related to the wartime and post-war period. Josipovic, said that the border problem with Serbia was not as big as the one with Slovenia and that it would be easier to …

Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) deputies in the parliament of Bosnia’s Serb dominated part Republika Srpska have vetoed a referendum law adopted by the region’s parliament earlier in February, declaring it to be in violation of their community’s “vital national interests”. The chairman of the Bosniak caucus in the Republika Srpska parliament …

Bulgaria and Russia have agreed to start building a nuclear power plant in the Bulgarian town of Belene this autumn, Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said on Saturday (February 20th), after a trip to Sofia for talks with Bulgarian counterpart Traycho Traykov. Shmatko added that a series of details were …