Balkans

Macedonian PM Nikola Gruevski will meet EC President Jose Manuel Barroso on Tuesday on occasion of EU decision for start of accession negotiations with Macedonia. Prime Minister urged his Greek counterpart George Papandreou not to block Macedonia’s road towards EU at EU Council’s session. The same appeal was sent yesterday …

A protest against changing Macedonia’s name, organized by the World Macedonian Congress, will be staged outside the EU Office in Skopje. One of the messages sent from the protest will be that Athens’s demands and pressure of the European bureaucracy

Albanian opposition staged protest rallies in front of the headquarters of OSCE Conference and OSCE foreign ministers. The late Tuesday’s rally brought together hundreds of Albanian toilers who submitted a protest note to OSCE conference, noting that June parliamentary elections were non-democratic.

The Western Balkans integration in EU will bring peace in Europe, while the war, used as a political weapon will disappear completely from the European ground, Croatia’s President Stjepan Mesic said on Tuesday. “The aggressors, who have caused war, were actually defending their minorities. The time, when Europe unites, that …

Bulgaria’s ambassador in Washington, Luchezar Petkov, had resigned, President Georgi Purvanov confirmed on Tuesday. Petkov’s resignation followed the announcement on 13 November that the ambassador in Ankara, Branimir Mladenov, has also resigned. Both have been at the centre of a stand-off between Boiko Borisov’s government and President Georgi Purvanov. Borisov …

Russian Minister of Energy Sergey Shmatko expects problems in the work with the Bulgarian government on Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline project. The Minister made this statement at a regular sitting of the State Duma (lower chamber of the Russian Parliament), while answering a question about perspectives on realization of Russia’s projects …

The International Court of Justice, ICJ, on Wednesday continued hearings into the legality of Kosovo’s controversial decision to break away from Serbia. Serbia, Kosovo and 29 UN member states, including the US and Russia, are over the next days unveiling their arguments to the Court. The hearings, which run until …

The European Union and Bosnia signed on Tuesday an agreement on an anti-crisis package for the Balkan country worth 39 million euros. “This is a solidarity package which will enable Bosnia to overcome and respond to the global economic crisis,” the head of the European Union delegation to Bosnia Dimitris …

The spiritual leader of Bosnia’s Muslims Mustafa Ceric said that Switzerland’s ban on building minarets is a violation of basic human rights and a sign that Europe is in deep moral crisis. Ceric said that on the day of one of the two greatest Muslim holidays, Eid-al-Adha, Switzerland sent a …

The Macedonian Minister for Foreign Affairs Antonio Milososki will attend the 17-th OSCE Ministerial meeting, which will take place in Athens December 1-2. Milososki will give a speech at the Ministerial meeting and he is expected to hold bilateral talks with other countries’ foreign ministers.