Balkans

Bulgaria is counting on loans from Russia, Germany and France to build a new four-billion-euro nuclear power plant on the Danube, Deputy Economy and Energy Minister Yavor Kuyumdjiev said Thursday. Funding for the plant, which was due to come from the Bulgarian state and German power giant RWE, was proving …

The size and cost of the Alexander the Great statue planned for Skopje’s central square, as well as the lack of transparency on the part of the authorities over its commissioning, has provoked a series of attacks on the proposal. Art critics, sculptors and architects alike argue that the grandiose …

Media has pointed to evidence of corruption in tender and administration procedures while Kosovo was under administration of the United Nations Mission to the country, UNMIK, between the years 1999 and 2008. The Daily Telegraph has reported that millions of euros of EU funds used to finance contracts and projects …

The President of Serbia Boris Tadic has called the decision of the International War Crimes Tribunal to triple Veselin Sljivancanin’s sentence ‘disappointing’. But at the same time, Tadic said the Tribunal’s decision should not be ‘brought into question’. In an interview with the daily Politika, Tadic said that questioning the …

Despite clear differences regarding Kosovo’s independence, Macedonia and Serbia must focus on their joint interests, the Foreign Ministers of the two countries said Thursday. Serbia’s Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic arrived today in a fist visit of a Serbian official to neighboring Macedonia after the country recognized the former Serbian province …

The Serbian government is debating a package of anti-crisis measures that aim to support industry and offer cheaper loans. Economy Minister Mladjan Dinkic, in a statement to the press, said that the package included restrictive, stimulative and active measures. He said that the key was to support industry, offering cheaper …

The US ambassador to Albania in an impassioned speech on Wednesday harshly attacked attempts by politicians to exert pressure on prosecutors, robustly upholding the profession’s independence. At a ceremony marking the expansion of joint-investigation units commended for fighting economic crime in the last two years, John L. Withers emphasised that …

A recent survey shows that Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov’s party, Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria, GERB has the support of 23 to 24 per cent of Bulgarians intending to vote in the June 7 elections for European Parliament. The senior partner in the tri-partite ruling coalition, the Bulgarian …

Kosovo officials say their country has gained enough votes to join the International Monetary Fund, IMF, an important step in the country’s efforts to secure both global recognition and international aid. Kosovo’s government has said that a vote at the body by more than half the IMF’s member states had …

Opposition parties and independent economists have panned Tirana’s centre-right government for acting ”irresponsibly” by accepting what they say is an exorbitantly high interest rate on a commercial loan to finance the Albania-Kosovo highway. “The government has indebted its citizens in order to finance its pre-electoral spending,” former Minister of Finance …