Balkans

Bulgaria and Azerbaijan are expected to sign an agreement to cooperate on gas supplies Friday, as President Ilham Aliyev pays a working visit to Sofia at the invitation of his Bulgarian counterpart Georgi Parvanov. Earlier the week Bulgaria’s Minister of Economy, Energy, and Tourism, Traicho Traikov, announced that Bulgaria’s state-owned …

Countries from Central Europe and the Balkans should do more in order be better prepared for a otential gas crisis and should find ways to reduce their dependency on Russian supplies, officials and businesspeople said during a Central European Initiative, CEI, meeting held in Bucharest. “The debate over energy security …

Prijedlog zakona o praznicima BiH, po kojem bi državni praznici bili Nova godina, Praznik rada – 1. maj, Dan borbe protiv fašizma – 9. maj i Dan podrške žrtvama nasilja – 26. juni, vjerovatno neće dobiti podršku poslanika SDA i Stranke za BiH u parlamentu BiH. Ovaj prijedlog zakona, koji …

Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen has suggested a softening in the Dutch position regarding Serbia’s cooperation with the UN War Crimes Tribunal. Speaking at a debate on EU enlargement in the Dutch parliament, Verhagen said Serbia’s cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, showed that: “Upward …

Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina must catch up on the reforms needed to qualify for a short-stay visa waiver like those of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, said MEPs on Thursday. The European Commission should report on the two countries’ progress early in 2010, and also …

The International Monetary Fund, IMF, could delay the release of the second installment of its stand-by deal with Bosnia, an official said. “I have a feeling that the second installment will be postponed,’’ Mustafa Mujezinovic, the prime minister of Bosnia’s Croat-Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) entity told journalists.

EU countries have agreed to proceed with Albania’s application for membership of the European Union, a first step in a long process towards possible membership of the bloc, EU diplomats said. Ambassadors from the 27 EU states decided at a meeting in Brussels to ask the European Commission to prepare …

Državljanima BiH u proteklih 14 godina postalo je oko 16.000 osoba. Među njima je i oko 1.500 plaćenika i dobrovoljaca koji su u BiH došli kako bi ratovali za jednu od sukobljenih strana. Pasoš BiH dobijali su osuđeni kriminalci, osumnjičeni za terorizam, plaćeni vojnici – jednom riječju psi rata. U …

The Bulgarian government Wednesday formally put forward Foreign Minister Rumiana Jeleva to be the country’s new EU Commissioner. 

A former Bosnian Serb army general has lost his appeal against a conviction for war crimes committed during the 43-month siege of Sarajevo.