Eurasia

The adoption of the euro is a secondary priority for Bulgaria to securing macroeconomic stability and a prudent fiscal policy, Finance Minister Petar Oresharski said in Brussels. In an interview with Bloomberg after a session of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (Ecofin), Oresharski said that Bulgaria’s entry into the …

Russians aged under 18 will get free tourist visas to Bulgaria when making group visits, Bulgarian Deputy Foreign Minister Milen Keremedchiev was quoted as saying by Focus news agency on March 12 2009. Teachers accompanying the groups will also get a free visa provided there is one teacher for every …

Bulgarian President Georgi Purvanov is departing on March 12 for a two-day visit to Moldova, in accord with an official invitation from his Moldavian counterpart Vladimir Voronin, the press centre of the Presidency said on March 11 2009. Scheduled for the visit are discussions between the two leaders. Purvanov is …

The University of Pristina has gotten back thousands of documents that were removed by the Serbs during the conflict in the late 1990s, with the help an NGO. SPARK NGO, a non-profit organisation that supports people in post-conflict regions by building the capacity of local economic and educational institutions, helped …

Bulgaria’s economy grew by an annual rate of six per cent in 2008, making the country the fastest growing economy in the European Union. The annual growth figure was dragged lower by slower growth of 3.5 per cent in the forth quarter, half the rate of growth that was recorded …

The state-run Anatolian news agency said the Istanbul prosecutor had submitted a 1,900-page indictment. Fifty-six more people were indicted on Tuesday on charges of plotting to overthrow Turkey’s Islamist-rooted AK Party government, and local media said two retired generals were among the suspects.

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 …

Medvedev said new regulations would require specific senior officials to declare their property on an annual basis. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced new anti-corruption measures on Tuesday aimed at closing legal loopholes and forcing senior officials to come clean about their wealth. Medvedev, who made anti-corruption one of his election …

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 …