Eurasia

European Commission (EC) Vice-President Jacques Barrot says Serbia has fulfilled all conditions for visa liberalization. As of December 19, its citizens should be able to travel freely in the Schengen space, said this EC official in charge of justice, freedom and security.

The crime in the town of Vukovar in 1991 was premeditated, just like in Srebrenica, Croatian President Stjepan Mesić said yesterday. Croatia is marking Nov. 18 as Vukovar Victims Remembrance Day. Mesić went on to say: “I simply cannot understand how wounded civilians could have been taken out of the …

Moldovan PM Vlad Filat says that up to 1.2 million Moldovans –more than one-quarter of the population – will be able to travel easily to EU-member Romania. This will come due to an agreement he signed in Bucharest last week.

Bulgaria will receive 75 million euros from the 2010 EU budget, part of the recently approved 300 million euros in further compensation for the early shutdown of two nuclear reactors at the Kozloduy power plant, Bulgarian media said.

Montenegrin minority in Albania urged the authorities to establish schools where children can study in their native language, local media reported.

The Georgian Foreign Ministry sent a protest note to the Russian Foreign Ministry. “The ministry invited Swiss Deputy Ambassador Ms. Schleicher and gave her a notification to pass to the Russian side to protest the visits of Russian Federation Security Council Secretary Deputy Yuriy Zubakov and Russian ministerial delegation representatives …

The next round of Georgian-South Ossetian negotiations to prevent tensions in the Caucasus failed. The meeting originally scheduled for Nov. 19 was canceled by the South Ossetian side, Georgian officials reported. 

The ongoing political crisis in Romania has reached a new high point, just days before the November 22 presidential elections. It is becoming increasingly evident that what is at stake is a bitter struggle between rival cliques within the ruling elite over power, influence and money. The country has been …

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will meet Thursday his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko to try to prevent new gas crisis. The two leaders will meet in the Livadiya Castle in Crimean resort Yalta, where in 1945 Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill have redrawn the after war map.

European Union leaders will gather in Brussels later to select their first full-time president and foreign affairs high representative. The heads of the 27 EU member nations are divided over which candidates to choose, and after-dinner negotiations are expected to last into the night. Former UK prime minister Tony Blair …