Balkans

The third report that assesses the fulfillment of key priorities of the Accession Partnership between the European Union and Macedonia will be presented in Skopje on Wednesday. The report, drafted in the framework of the project Accession Watch related to the period July-September 2009. The project is implemented by Macedonian …

Albanian Academy of Science has finally come up with its own stance on the newly-published Macedonian encyclopedia which triggered an avalanche of reactions in Albania.

Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov will pay an official visit to the Republic of Cyprus on October on October 9 and 10, 2009 on the invitation of the President Dimitris Christofias, Presidency press office informed. The Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov will be accompanied by his wife Zorka Parvanova.

Bulgaria is the only EU member state without strategy for cultural heritage but in the same time is the country with the biggest cultural heritage, said MP from Order, Law and Justice Atanas Semov during a discussion on the amendments to the Cultural Heritage Act.

An EU-Western Balkans conference about the economic crisis, regional cooperation and EU membership perspective is to take place in Brussels on December 9. The conference has been recently suggested by Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt. It will be unveiled by Bildt, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, European Enlargement Commissioner …

Representatives of the police at EULEX will discuss the principles for applying of the technical agreement on cooperation with representatives of the Serbian Ministry of Interior today in Belgrade, Serbian media inform. The technical agreement will make the regional cooperation in the fight against crime more efficient and will contribute …

Montenegro will not become member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) this year, the Montenegrin online edition pcnen.com reports. That became clear after the failure of the third stage of the bilateral talks with Ukraine in relation to the other controversial issues in this process.

Athens and Skopje could reach a deal on their name row if they focus solely on finding a compromise appelation, Macedonia’s President Georgi Ivanov says. “Various non negotiable issues, such as Macedonian identity and language […] were included in the past talks,” Ivanov told the chief editors of German media …

Russia will defiantly support Serbia at the International Court of Justice’s hearing on Kosovo’s declaration of independence, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says. Serbia filed a case against Kosovo after its unilateral declaration of independence in February 2008. The International Court of Justice hearing, which is to probe the legitimacy, or …

The European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has urged the European Commission, EC, to change its plan for visa-liberalisation in the Balkans. The committee asked the EC to tentatively add Albania and Bosnia to the White Schengen list, pending the fulfillment of benchmarks, and to urgently open talks on the visa …