Balkans

Macedonian Premier Nikola Gruevski held a short informal meeting with his new Greek counterpart, George Papandreou, on Thursday in Brussels, the first between leaders of the two countries in several years. Both prime ministers avoided journalists after the 20-minute discussion, which was held on the sidelines of the EU Council …

An IMF delegation and the Serbian government have reached an agreement on Serbia’s state budget for next year. Broadcaster RTS reports that there will be no increase in VAT and that the projected budget deficit will be 4 per cent, half a per cent lower than for this year.

The chair of Serbia’s council for cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, Rasim Ljajic, does not know whether Tribunal Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz will say that Serbia is fully cooperating with the court. Brammertz will visit Serbia next Wednesday to discuss Serbia’s cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former …

FM Vuk Jeremić says he believes that the chief Hague prosecutor will confirm Serbia’s full cooperation with the Hague Tribunal in his report to the UN SC. He said that Serbian officials will have “detailed meetings” with Serge Brammertz, who is due here on Nov. 4 for a working visit, …

President Boris Tadić says Belgrade will continue to insist on a resumption of talks on Kosovo and finding a compromise solution. This, the president told state broadcaster RTS late on Wednesday, regardless of the stand of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) stand on the issue of the legality of …

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton will arrive in Kosovo on Sunday, says Hashim Thaci. The Kosovo Albanian premier explained that Clinton will attend the unveiling of a statue of himself. The statue has been placed on a Priština boulevard that has also been named after the former American president.

The Hague Tribunal prosecution requested a partial retrial of Ramush Haradinaj. The prosecution claims that the initial trial, which resulted in the ethnic Albanian’s acquittal on charges of crimes in Kosovo in 1998, was not just.

The Hague Tribunal has rejected Radovan Karadzic’s appeal of the Tribunal’s decision to forbid the publishing of one of his responses in a written interview with Le Monde. After the Registrar’s Office of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, reviewed a copy of the interview Karadzic wanted …

Macedonian Premier Nikola Gruevski held a short informal meeting with his new Greek counterpart, George Papandreou, on Thursday in Brussels. The parlay, which took place on the sidelines of an EU Council meeting, was expected to focus on the countries’ name dispute, but both leaders left after the meeting without …

NATO membership would stabilise the political situation in Bosnia and open the way for the settlement of all questions concerning the country’s future, Bosnia’s defence minister says. “In the current situation, when our politics are war by other means, NATO membership would resolve all open security issues,” Selmo Cikotic said …