UKRAINE Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Thursday offered reassurances to Europe’s natural gas consumers, saying a recent agreement with the Kremlin on fuel deliveries had eliminated chances of another Russian gas blockade. ‘Ukraine and Russia are convinced, that this Christmas there will not be any of the traditional jokes, …

GEORGIA Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister, David Jalaganiya and Assistant to the Georgian honorary council in the Atlanta city, Scott Henwood held a meeting at the Georgian foreign Ministry. The meeting mulled cooperation between Georgia and the U.S state of Georgia, as well as the project on development of agrarian industry …

GEORGIA The next five-sided meeting on incident prevention will be held in the village of Ergneti in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone on September 3. The meeting is scheduled for 11 a.m., the head of the Analytical Department of the Georgian Interior Ministry, Shota Utiashvili, said. It is being held in …

ROMANIA Romania is currently in a deep recession that is expected to last into 2010, and even so, the nation’s economy is unlikely to return to its recent lofty growth rates in the near term, the long-term prospects remain good, according to a new Moody’s report on Romania, cited by …

NETHERLANDS The Dutch government has dealt another blow to the new EU member states Bulgaria and Romania, saying they are still doing too little to tackle corruption and organized crime, and their management of EU funds is still below par. The conclusions were announced on Wednesday in response to the …

BULGARIA Simeon Dyankov, Bulgaria’s Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, says that the flat income tax rate will stay unchanged, while Value-Added Tax (VAT) could be cut from the current 20 per cent to 18 per cent in 2010 and by a further two per cent by the end of …

BULGARIA Former government ministers will be indicted in the next few days, Bulgaria’s Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said on September 3 2009. Tsvetanov declined to give names, saying that it was up to prosecutors to complete the indictments. Bulgarian news agency BTA reported Tsvetanov as telling …

CYPRUS Greek Cypriot representatives had postponed the second round of peace talks following a dispute over a pilgrimage to an orthodox church in the Turkish Cypriot north, an official said on Wednesday. The leaders of the two rival communities were scheduled to start the new round of negotiations on Thursday …

GREECE Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis on Wednesday evening announced the holding of a snap general election in a television speech to the nation. In prefacing announcement, Karamanlis underlined the need for immediate and significant reforms and measures to deal with the repercussions of the international economic crisis and what …

BOSNIA The US is concerned about the current situation in Bosnia and its leaders’ commitment to securing EU and NATO membership, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Stuart E. Jones said. “The American government is concerned because we haven’t seen practical actions which reflect [Bosnian officials’] commitment to Euro-Atlantic integration,” …