Balkans

Analysts say the Croatian delay will drive another nail in the coffin of Balkan states` EU ambitions. A border dispute with Slovenia will prolong Croatia’s European Union entry talks into 2010 and may undermine Zagreb’s resolve to enforce the toughest reforms that still lie ahead. Analysts say the Croatian delay …

TIRANA, Albania—Albania’s government has increased its guarantee on bank deposits to euro25,000 ($32,034) from euro5,433 previously, an effort to build confidence in the banking system, the state press office said Friday. The government decision also aims to reassure more than 1 million Albanian immigrants that their deposits would be safer …

Ukraine and Croatia are considering prospects for suspending visa regulations over the 2009 summer season. Ukraine’s Ambassador Markiyan Lubkivskyi discussed the issue with Croatian Interior Minister Tomislav Karamarko. 

ZAGREB – Croatia is likely to have up to 25,000 more jobless this year, the head of the European Union candidate’s unemployment bureau said on Friday, giving a much lower estimate than employers and analysts. “Based on last year’s and this year’s expected growth figures, we estimate that annual average …

Skopje – European Parliament’s resolution, adopted Thursday in Strasbourg, presents a victory for Macedonia’s diplomacy as its recommends launching of the country’s EU entry talks and free visa regime for its citizens, Vice-Premier for European Affairs Ivica Bocevski said on Thursday. – Today, the Republic of Macedonia scored a small …

Belgrade – Thirteen Serbs were convicted of war crimes Thursday and sentenced to prison for the execution-style killings of some 200 Croats – one of the worst massacres of POWs during the bloody Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, AP reports. Serbia’s war crimes court judges handed the maximum 20 year …

Montenegro will provide financial aid to ailing aluminium producer KAP, under several conditions, the government said. Early in January, KAP had said it would suspend production by February without government’s support, due to severe losses from high production costs and falling metal prices on the international crisis. Local media later …

ROME  – When police arrested two Romanians for the rape of an Italian teenager in Rome, Il Giornale, a paper owned by the family of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, reported: “The Romanian beasts have been caught.” Three weeks later, prosecutors admitted the “beasts” could not be guilty — DNA tests …

Bucharest. Romania could slip into recession this year, when the economy could show a contraction of 1.0 percent to growth of 1.5 percent, Finance Minister Gheorghe Pogea said on Thursday. Romania is currently in talks with the International Monetary Fund and the European Union over a possible financial bailout.

Officials from the UN’s High Commission for Refugees, UNHCR, and Romania on Thursday officially opened an emergency transit refugee centre in Timisoara, western Romania, to house refugees facing acute danger and in need of immediate evacuation. The centre, the first of its kind in the world, has been set up …