Balkans

Macedonia will not introduce visa requirements on Albania’s citizens following the EU’s decision to exempt Macedonian citizens from visa obligations when travelling to EU countries.

Kosovo’s declaration of independence was made too early, and countries that don’t recognize Kosovo are actually safeguarding their own national interests, Greek President Carolos Papoulias said.

Radovan Karadzic will challenge the decision by war crimes judges to appoint him a defense lawyer in a trial in which the former Bosnian Serb leader is representing himself, his legal adviser said on Thursday. Judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia last month appointed London-based barrister …

The name dispute between Macedonia and Greece could be solved through international arbitration and to be separated from the EU accession talks until Macedonia reaches its European Atlantic aims. This is what Croatian President Stepan Mesic said during his visit to Skopje.

Croatia started a procedure of visa lifting for Serbia, Serbian Dnevnik newspaper writes on Thursday. The information was confirmed by government’s spokesperson Zlatko Mehun. At the decision of the Croatian government, citizens of Serbia will not need to get visas for crossing the territory of Croatia, as well as for …

Serbia’s Head of the Council for Cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, Rasim Ljajic, says he will give Serb forces another month to arrest the two remaining war crimes fugitives, Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic. If the two are not arretsed by that time, he says will resign, he says. Ljajic …

Finland supports granting a date for Macedonia’s start of membership talks at the EU summit on Decembers 7, Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said after meeting his visiting Macedonian counterpart Nikola Gruevski Thursday in Helsinki. While the country will urge other EU members to do the same, the ongoing name …

Recent dialogue between Skopje and Athens has been beneficial but has so far failed to produde any significant breaktrough in the bilateral name row, Macedonia’s Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki said Wednesday. He said that the Greek position remains the same, that without Macedonia changing its name Greece will prevent the …

In a late evening press conference on Wednesday Prime Minister Sali Berisha presented a series of documents on what he called “the most dangerous mafia clan in the Balkans”, referring to the Albanian opposition. In what is the latest chapter in the on-going battle between Berisha’s government and Albania’s Socialist …

EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said that countries of the Western Balkans are one of her main priorities. The newly appointed EU’s foreign policy chief announced that she will try to achieve “agreement” among EU member states in the European Parliament. One of Ashton’s main concerns is human rights.