Balkans

Residents of Strpce, Kosovo are receiving electricity for the first time in 34 days, the head of Strpce municipality, Zvonko Mihajlovic, told the Tanjug news agency on Monday. The power supply has yet to resumed for several major customers, including the post office, Raiffeisen bank and Serbian telecommunications company Telekom, …

Albanians from southern Serbia have started an initiative for the forming of a special region Presevo Valley. But the Belgrade political public sees this as an unacceptable act of separatism, Serbia’s Kurir reported. Albanian parties forwarded to the Serbian government a request for the formation of Albanian regional institutions and …

ZAGREB Croatia this Tuesday celebrates the anniversary of a military operation as Victory Day and Homeland Gratitude Day and Day of Croatian Defenders. This despite the fact that the August, 1995 military attack, known as Operation Storm, on Serb areas of that country killed over 2,000 and drove more than …

BELGRADE Chairman of the Coordination Body for Southern Serbia Milan Marković says the recent ethnic Albanian declaration “will not solve any problems”. The body deals with issues in the southern municipalities of Preševo, Bujanovac and Medveđa, where Serbia’s largest population of ethnic Albanians outside of Kosovo itself lives.

SOFIA, Bulgaria The ministers of the ruling Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (CEDB) dealing with EU programs will make an evaluation on all projects with signed contracts for financing. EU Affairs and EU Funds Control Committee chairperson Svetlin Tanchev announced the news.

The new head of NATO has said that its Kosovo force could be completely withdrawn within four years. Anders Rasmussen, NATO’s new secretary general, said he wanted to see Kosovo Force, KFOR, “reduced to just a small reaction force, or out altogether” within his four-year term.

Ethnic Albanian officials in southern Serbia have launched a new initiative for the formation of a separate region in the Presevo Valley with its own institutions and organs. The proposal was raised in the assembly of the Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac municipalities and envisages the creation of an ethnic Albanian-led …

The ruling party in Bosnia’s Republika Srpska entity has called for foreign judges and prosecutors to be removed from the country’s judicial system and for the closure of the Office of the High Representative, OHR. In a Sunday press statement, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, alleged that Bosnia’s …

SOFIA Bulgaria may adopt the euro in the last year of the new government’s mandate which expires in 2013, Finance Minister Simeon Djankov said in an interview to 24 Chasa daily, published on Monday. 

Internal problems within the EU and enlargement fatigue are having an effect on opinions in Balkan countries, a survey shows. The survey, conducted by the Gallup Balkan Monitor, shows that EU membership remains a high priority for most Balkan residents. Yet, in most countries respondents feel that the EU welcome …