Balkans

Kosovo’s government has earmarked 16,000 euros for the construction of a new house for a Serbian family recently returned to Kosovo, lauding the move as a demonstration of the government’s commitment to ensuring that Kosovo is a true home for all of its ethnic groups. Kosovo’s Prime Minister Hashim Thaci …

A group of some 20 people, some of them reportedly wearing masks, stormed a press conference late on Tuesday in Athens during which the Rainbow party of Macedonians in Greece was promoting a new Greek-Macedonian dictionary, according to local media reports. Local Kanal 5 TV aired footage of the incident …

Serbian Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac told Parliament yesterday that the government was in full compliance with a parliamentary ruling on military neutrality, underlining his ministry’s commitment to membership responsibilities in NATO’s Partnership for Peace, PfP, programme. Discussing recent military exercises held in Georgia from May 9 to June 1, Sutanovac …

Macedonia has no intention of rescinding its recognition of Kosovo, Macedonian Deputy Prime Minister Musa Xhaferi told local media Tuesday in Skopje, following intense media speculation. Rescinding recognition of Kosovo as an independent nation is “not an option”, Xhaferi told reporters, adding that the government, on the contrary, was working …

The Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz of the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, is scheduled tomorrow to submit his long-awaited report on Serbian cooperation to the UN Security Council in New York. Political commentators expect this report to be his most positive assessment yet of Serbia’s cooperation …

Following a Monday meeting in New York, Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn concluded that it was possible for Croatia to finish EU accession negotiations by the end of the year. “We discussed all aspects of the negotiations with the EU and we remain optimists …

Serbia and Turkey have signed a bilateral economic free trade agreement at the annual economic summit in Istanbul, which will take effect on January 1, 2010. Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Regional Development Mladjan Dinkic and Turkish Foreign Trade Minister Zafer Caglayan signed a free trade …

TIRANA, Albania Interior Minister Bujar Nishani says Albania has produced 1 million new electronic ID cards since January and that the rest will be in the hands of citizens before they need them to vote in the June 28th parliamentary elections. Nishani said on Sunday (May 31st) that there is …

Romania’s Romgaz has set up a joint venture with Russia’s Gazprom for underground gas storage facilities that will boost the country’s ability to build gas stocks and could improve supplies to the European Union, the economy minister said Monday. Romgaz and Gazprom each own 50 percent of the joint venture, …

Switzerland has signed a protocol with the European Union extending the “free movement” of people under the Schengen Agreement to Romanians and Bulgarians. This means that from June 1 2009, Bulgarians and Romanians no longer require international passports. The two countries are the latest editions to the free-movement agreement, a …