Balkans

European Union should encourage solving open issues between Western Balkan countries, Slovenian Foreign Minister Samuel Zbogar said last night in Paris. He pointed the recent border issue settlement between Slovenia and Croatia. The two countries made a great step forward by signing the arbitrage agreement.

The chiefs of Serbian and Romanian MoD military cooperation departments signed on Thursday in Belgrade a plan for bilateral military cooperation for 2010. The plan, signed by Milorad Perić and Alexandru Cotoara-Nicolae, envisages exchange of high-level visits, joint exercises and exchange of experiences in the defense system reform.

A delegation of the Monitoring Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) visited the Serbian parliament on Thursday. They conferred with representatives of the ruling majority and the opposition in the on Serbia’s progress in fulfilling its commitments stemming from Council of Europe membership, reports said.

The UN Security Council will debate on the situation in Kosovo in New York this Friday, at a session to be addressed by the Serbian President Boris Tadić. Tadić is due to speak at the council at 21:00 CET. The session will consider the latest three-monthly report of UN Secretary …

The last sitting of the European Parliament (EP) delegation in Strasbourg on Wednesday, held to work out the details around the meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Committee EU-Macedonia scheduled for February 18-19 in Skopje, ended up with a severe discussion, which looked like a quarrel between German and Greek MEPs. …

Bosnian MPs passed the amendments and supplements to the Criminal Code, which was the last condition before the lifting of the visa regime in the European Union. Thus, the Bosnian parliament met all conditions on the road map for liberalization of the visa regime for Bosnian citizens before the arrival …

Serbia’s Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic has said his country could become an EU candidate by the end of this year. Djelic said that this could happen if the country gets it candidacy questionnaire from the EU by mid spring and fills it out by the summer. The questionnaire aims …

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has expressed her country’s support for Montenegro’s Euro-Atlantic integration. Clinton congratulated Montenegro on receiving its Action Plan for membership to NATO, MAP, in December last year. “I offered, and support US efforts to establish rule of law by seeking membership to NATO and the …

Politically speaking, the year 2009 for Bosnia and Herzegovina was a wash, as the country’s leaders failed to meet the majority of requirements for EU and NATO integration. This year’s election could change that, but no one’s holding their breath, Anes Alic writes for ISN Security Watch. Having failed to …

Poslanici SDA i Stranke za BiH u Predstavničkom domu parlamenta BiH uskratili su jučer podršku Prijedlogu zakona o popisu stanovništva u BiH naglašavajući kako BiH treba popisati sve svoje državljane bez obzira na to gdje žive, što nije predviđeno ovim zakonom. Poslanici iz RS podržali su popis insistirajući da se …