Balkans

Romania’s annual inflation rate rose slightly to 6.9 per cent in February from 6.7 per cent in January, primarily due to the weakening of the national currency, the leu. The National Statistics Institute, INS, also said on Wednesday that the rise in inflation in February was due to an increase …

The report said Serbia needed about 30 million euros ($38 million) to unearth and defuse unexploded cluster ordnance. About 160,000 people in Serbia are still in danger from thousands of unexploded cluster bombs a decade after NATO’s bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, a Norway-based aid organisation said on Tuesday. The study …

The fate of the Office of High Representative for Bosnia will be decided at an international meeting in Sarajevo on March 26-27. Top Bosnian Serb officials advocated on Tuesday closing the international peace envoy’s office in Bosnia, but a think tank report warned the fragile Balkan country was still not …

The Slovene magazine revealed that the Slovenian secret service wiretapped conversations between Slovenian and Croatian PM’s. The Slovenian magazine Dnevnik last October requested of the government the recordings of all telephone conversations between Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and the former Slovenian Prime Minister, Janez Jansa, from 2004. In June …

Young Bosnian linguists are promoting studying of the Bosnian language, while Republika Srpska says Bosnian is only a variant of Croatian. An association of young linguists and translators in Bosnia-Herzegovina several months ago created a web site ‘bosanski.ba’, but lately they are being attacked by linguists from the Bosnian Serb …

Bulgarian Finance Minister, Plamen Oresharski, has stated that fast-track entry into the euro zone is not Bulgaria’s first priority, after coming out of a meeting of the EU Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) in Brussels late Tuesday. “It (euro membership) is not our first priority – our first priority …

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister, appears set to become the new Secretary-General of NАТО, following a private agreement by the leaders of Britain, France and Germany to back his candidacy. In a move that would place Mr Rasmussen at the centre of the west’s drive to win the …

Madrid, – Serbian President Boris Tadic said in Madrid today that he wants to open a fresh page in relations between Serbia and the United States, adding that he was sure that he would soon be meeting with the new US president. “I am sure that I will soon be …

The president of Maldives, Muhamed Nashid, has ordered police to investigate allegations that government officials accepted a $2 million bribe to recognise Kosovo as independent, media in the Maldives and Serbia reported. The allegations were made at the beginning of March by the opposition Islamic Democratic Party.

Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Zapatero has reaffirmed that Spain will not recognise Kosovo as independent, newspapers in Kosovo and Serbia reported on March 10 2009. “Spain’s position on the unilateral declaration of Kosovo’s independence is known – it is non-recognition,” Zapatero was quoted as saying by Kosovo daily Koha …