Bulgaria has become the first country in the region and the third EU member state to ratify Serbia’s Stabilisation and Association Agreement, SAA, with the EU. Bringing together majority and opposition parties in the Bulgarian parliament, the agreement was officially ratified on Friday.

Greece has achieved “considerable progress” in recovering its public finances, the IMF said in a report on Saturday. However, there are still “clear risks” facing the country’s healthcare and social security system, according

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen named former Turkish presidential advisor Huseyin Dirioz as the organisation’s deputy secretary-general in charge of defence and planning on Friday (July 16th). The move came following a promise Rasmussen made when he took the post in 2009 to appoint a Turkish citizen as his deputy.