Eurasia

Macedonian PM Nikola Gruevski will meet EC President Jose Manuel Barroso on Tuesday on occasion of EU decision for start of accession negotiations with Macedonia. Prime Minister urged his Greek counterpart George Papandreou not to block Macedonia’s road towards EU at EU Council’s session. The same appeal was sent yesterday …

A protest against changing Macedonia’s name, organized by the World Macedonian Congress, will be staged outside the EU Office in Skopje. One of the messages sent from the protest will be that Athens’s demands and pressure of the European bureaucracy

Albanian opposition staged protest rallies in front of the headquarters of OSCE Conference and OSCE foreign ministers. The late Tuesday’s rally brought together hundreds of Albanian toilers who submitted a protest note to OSCE conference, noting that June parliamentary elections were non-democratic.

The Western Balkans integration in EU will bring peace in Europe, while the war, used as a political weapon will disappear completely from the European ground, Croatia’s President Stjepan Mesic said on Tuesday. “The aggressors, who have caused war, were actually defending their minorities. The time, when Europe unites, that …

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Petro Poroshenko and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov agreed on gradually abandoning the compilation of lists of individuals banned from entering their countries, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement commenting on a meeting between Poroshenko and Lavrov on the sidelines of the 17th OSCE Ministerial …

Georgian Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze held bilateral talks within the OSCE Ministerial Council in Athens. He met with OSCE Secretary General Mark Perren de Brishambo, the Georgian FM said. The sides discussed the situation in Georgia and stressed the importance of international organizations in ensuring security and stability in the …

73% of Romanians who would turn out in the second round of the presidential elections in Romania on December 6 would support the candidate they prefer, while only 27% of Romanians would vote to prevent one of the nominees from winning, an INSOMAR opinion poll reveals.

Bulgaria’s ambassador in Washington, Luchezar Petkov, had resigned, President Georgi Purvanov confirmed on Tuesday. Petkov’s resignation followed the announcement on 13 November that the ambassador in Ankara, Branimir Mladenov, has also resigned. Both have been at the centre of a stand-off between Boiko Borisov’s government and President Georgi Purvanov. Borisov …

Russian Minister of Energy Sergey Shmatko expects problems in the work with the Bulgarian government on Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline project. The Minister made this statement at a regular sitting of the State Duma (lower chamber of the Russian Parliament), while answering a question about perspectives on realization of Russia’s projects …

Turkey has waded into the row over Switzerland’s ban on mosque minarets, saying the decision highlights the resurgence of racism in Europe. The Swiss people voted to stop the building of minarets on mosques in a referendum on Sunday. Turkish immigrants account for about a quarter of Swiss muslims. In …