Eurasia

BUCHAREST Foreign ministers of Romania, Serbia and Hungary will gather on Saturday for the fourth ministerial meeting in Timisoara in western Romania. The meeting will be attended by Romanian Foreign Minister Cristian Diaconescu, Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic and Hungarian Foreign Minister Balazs Peter.

Romania, which received a 20 billion-euro ($28 billion) bailout led by the International Monetary Fund and the European Union, got a further $423 million loan from the World Bank to weather the financial crisis. 

Moldova asked the European Union on Thursday to take action to stop what it said was Romanian interference in its affairs.Romanian President Traian Basescu has angered Moldova’s leaders by backing the country’s liberal opposition in a parliamentary election set for July 29.

SOFIA Bulgaria’s outgoing Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev announced on Friday that Iraq pledged to pump 15 billion cubic meters of gas through Nabucco pipeline starting from 2014-2015.

Bulgaria’s new Parliament is only at the stage of laying down the rules that will govern the legislature’s work for the rest of its term, but the major parties have already had their first major clash. The issue that irked the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the predominantly ethnic Turk …

TIRANA, Albania The opposition Socialist Party (SP) blamed the government Thursday (July 16th) for failing to meet EU standards for achieving visa-free travel to member countries. Three other Balkan countries did make it onto the so-called White Schengen List.

ZAGREB, Croatia Interior Minister Tomislav Karamarko and US Ambassador to Croatia Robert Bradtke signed a memorandum for co-operation Thursday (July 16th) in the fight against organised crime. According to the document, the two countries will join efforts in terms of both prevention and crime-fighting and will co-operate in staff training …

PRISTINA, Kosovo Serbs living in Kosovo have not welcomed the news of visa liberalisation for Serbia, because it specifically excludes them, local media reported on Thursday (July 16th). European Commission officials said on Wednesday that they would propose the inclusion of Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro in the so-called White Schengen …

BRUSSELS, Belgium Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and Serbia are the cheapest countries in Europe, according to statistics compiled by the EU’s Statistical Office Eurostat, published on Thursday (July 16th).

Representatives of Bosnia’s top five political parties have agreed to speed up reforms required to win a green light for EU visa liberalisation and close the doors of the international community’s Office of the High Representative, OHR. The atmosphere of the Thursday evening meeting was tense and characterized by back-and-forth …