Balkans

Albania has made huge progress despite missing targets to qualify EU visa-free status by the end of the year, according to the country’s foreign minister. “The commission has recognized that Albania is progressing at full speed toward the government’s major goal, lifting visa restrictions within 12 months,” said foreign minister …

Qualifying countries in the Western Balkans could have visa-free status across the EU by the end of the year. The EU Council of Ministers meeting in Luxembourg have green-lighted the European Commission’s scheme of removing visa restrictions for countries in the Western Balkans who meet their criteria.

While the ”name” referendum is a legitimate idea, Macedonia’s leaders should focus on making the undisputed high NATO and EU approval in the country a dream come true, the United States ambassador to Macedonia said. The US ambassador to Macedonia urged its leaders to focus more on entrance into NATO …

Kosovo’s independence is irreversible according to Martti Ahtisaari, Nobel Peace Prize winner and former UN Envoy to Kosovo. He added that international recognitions of Kosovo’s statehood would cement the county’s status. Speaking at a special session of the Kosovo Assembly to celebrate the first anniversary of Kosovo’s constitution, Ahtisaari said …

Macedonia should work towards better relationships with its neighbours if it wants to join the EU, says PACE president Luis Maria de Puig. The president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) said that the road to EU membership is long and hard and that “everyone needs …

The case against the wartime Bosnian Serb leader is not what it should have been, and the Hague Tribunal will be forced to end its mandate with an entertaining farce, Anes Alic comments for ISN Security Watch. Though many had doubts that wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic would ever …

The Serbian Security and Information Agency, BIA, are denying media reports made last Friday in Pristina that three of their agents had been arrested in Caglavica, Kosovo. Jovan Stojic, chief of the Agency director’s office told Beta news agency at the weekend that “The Security and Information Agency has no …

Bosnian politics reached a new low over the weekend as Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) leaders abandoned crucial negotiations over Bosnian Serbs’ continued challenges to the country’s constitution and international authority. In a telling indication of growing tensions in the country, local police reported two vandal attacks on a Bosniak mosque and …

Serbian President Boris Tadic on Friday was presented with credentials from several newly appointed ambassadors to Serbia for the first time. He received the ambassadors in gathering from Egypt, Angola, Italy and Macedonia: Aly Galal Bassiouny, Toko Diakenga Serao, Armando Varricchio and Ljubisha Georgievski respectively.

Serbian president Boris Tadic told media in Novi Sad on Saturday that an equal regional development of Serbia should in no way postpone or halt the adoption of the draft Vojvodina Statute in Parliament. “Equal regional development is a subject that requires a serious democratic debate in the years to …