An EU-Western Balkans conference about the economic crisis, regional cooperation and EU membership perspective is to take place in Brussels on December 9. The conference has been recently suggested by Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt. It will be unveiled by Bildt, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, European Enlargement Commissioner …

Representatives of the police at EULEX will discuss the principles for applying of the technical agreement on cooperation with representatives of the Serbian Ministry of Interior today in Belgrade, Serbian media inform. The technical agreement will make the regional cooperation in the fight against crime more efficient and will contribute …

Montenegro will not become member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) this year, the Montenegrin online edition pcnen.com reports. That became clear after the failure of the third stage of the bilateral talks with Ukraine in relation to the other controversial issues in this process.

Vice President Joe Biden will visit Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic this month, the White House said on Tuesday, amid fresh concerns over the U.S. commitment to eastern Europe’s defence. Biden will visit the three NATO allies from October 20-24 and meet with heads of state and government, parliamentary …

Athens and Skopje could reach a deal on their name row if they focus solely on finding a compromise appelation, Macedonia’s President Georgi Ivanov says. “Various non negotiable issues, such as Macedonian identity and language […] were included in the past talks,” Ivanov told the chief editors of German media …

Russia will defiantly support Serbia at the International Court of Justice’s hearing on Kosovo’s declaration of independence, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says. Serbia filed a case against Kosovo after its unilateral declaration of independence in February 2008. The International Court of Justice hearing, which is to probe the legitimacy, or …

The European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has urged the European Commission, EC, to change its plan for visa-liberalisation in the Balkans. The committee asked the EC to tentatively add Albania and Bosnia to the White Schengen list, pending the fulfillment of benchmarks, and to urgently open talks on the visa …

The governor of the National Bank of Serbia, Radovan Jelasic, says that the IMF is ready to help Serbia, but “only if there is serious reform”. Following the conclusion of the annual IMF-World Bank meetings in Istanbul, the Serbian government has less than three weeks to decide on how to …

Albania’s Foreign Minister Ilir Meta and his Serbian counterpart Vuk Jeremic, have agreed to strengthen cooperation between their two countries. The pair’s meeting came on the sidelines of a regional conference of the so-called Visegrad states in Budapest on Tuesday, and was followed by a joint press conference. While the …

Chief mufti of the Islamic Community in Serbia, Muamer Zukorlić, has told EP Rapporteur Jelko Kacin that the rights of Serbian Muslims are in danger. Zukorlić met with Kacin in Slovenia to gave him a detailed report on the state of religious rights in Serbia, especially the “unlawful behavior of …