Foreign ministers of Georgia and Azerbaijan discussed the situation of the Udabno monastery of David Gareja monastery complex on the Georgian-Azerbaijani border.

The two sides agreed to meet within the NATO Chicago Summit to address this issue. Besides this, intensive contacts will be maintained between the border services of the two states.

They also agreed to resolve this problem in the near future.

Serbia will hold second-round of elections for the new head of state on Sunday, May 20.

Two candidates will confront each other – Democratic Party (DS)-led coalition candidate Boris Tadic and Serbian Progressive Party (SNS)-led coalition candidate Tomislav Nikolic.

Tadic, who won 25.31 percent or 989,454 votes in the first round, will be the first on the ballot, while Nikolic who took home 25.05 percent or 979,236 votes will be listed second.

On May 18 a tripartite meeting of the Prime Ministers of Bulgaria, Qatar and Turkey will take place in Varna, Bulgaria.

Varna will welcome Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Qatar’s Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani who is already on a two-day visit to Bulgaria.

After the meeting the prime ministers will make a statement for the press.

Baku will host the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly summer session in 2014, head of the Azerbaijani delegation to OSCE PA Bahar Muradova announced.

“Today, a letter with the consent of the Azerbaijani parliament will be sent to the OSCE secretary general. Holding session in Baku is very important in terms of the relations between Azerbaijan and the OSCE PA, as well as in terms of Azerbaijan’s position in the world,” she said.

Yuri Sterk, Bulgaria’s ambassador to Israel, has been appointed on 16 May along as chief of the EU delegation in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

He is the second Bulgarian diplomat to manage an EU delegation. The Read the rest of this entry »

Social Democrats will start a series of anti-government protests from June onwards, with the purpose to increase the party morale before the local elections which are to be held in early 2013.

The protests, aimed against the government of Prime Read the rest of this entry »

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said in New York that Chicago NATO summit is very important for his country and its useful for progress towards joining the Alliance.

“Recognition of our progress on the part of NATO is very important for us, and even though Read the rest of this entry »

Greek former prime minister Lucas Papademos said on Thursday that rejecting the tough terms of EU-IMF bailout would be “disastrous”.

“Any modification…must be pursued in a spirit of consensus and with the full agreement of European peers,” Papademos said in an open letter posted on the prime minister’s website.

“A unilateral rejection of the country’s contractual obligations would be disastrous for Greece, leading unavoidably outside the euro and possible outside the European Union,” he warned.

Accordint to the first half year report on Schengen activity for Romania and Bulgaria, the European Commission said it is ready to pass any measure that might be requested to ensure that the Council on Justice and Home Affairs will take a positive decision in September.

”Even though, in June 2011, the Council concluded that both Romania and Bulgaria officially met in full criteria Read the rest of this entry »

The second day of  Ratko Mladic’s trial started focusing on his role in the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995.

Prosecutor Peter McCloskey said Mladic’s guilt for the Srebrenica genocide is evident: “This was and will remain genocide… the evidence of this crime Read the rest of this entry »

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Wednesday that it was not possible to re-negotiate an international aid plan for Greece.

“This is an aid programme that was prepared down to the last detail, we cannot re-negotiate it,” Schaeuble said a day after the Greek political leaders announced that they are unable to form a new government, resulting to new elections to be held.

Greece will hold new elections on June 17, after members of parliament couldn’t agree on a coalition government following the last election earlier this month.

A court official will be appointed PM of the interim government, but most likely will not influence internationally agreements.

On May 15, Armenian ambassador to Georgia Hovhannes Manoukian met with Georgian First Deputy Foreign Minister Nikoloz Vashakidze.

The two discussed the collapse of the Armenian Surb Nshan Church in Tbilisi and launch of the overhaul of Armenian Drama Theater in Tbilisi, as well as bilateral relations.

The prosecution’s opening arguments mark the start of the trial of former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic, the last trial at the Hague Tribunal.

Mladic entered the plea of not guilty to all 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the Srebrenica genocide calling the accusations “monstrous”.

The Hague prosecution began its opening arguments talking about Elvedin Pasic, 14 years old in 1992, whose father was murdered together with 150 men in the village of Grabovica, in central Bosnia.

Bosnia’s International high representative, Valentin Inzko, presented an optimistic half-year report on the implementation of the peace agreement in Bosnia to the UN Security Council on Tuesday.

The report highlighted the long overdue Read the rest of this entry »

Resolving the “name” dispute with Greece remains the condition for Macedonia’s NATO accession, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.

He said the Alliance’s position remains unchanged, and is still based on the Read the rest of this entry »

Ankara plans to promote NATO bid for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Georgia at the Chicago summit. Turkey will convey the Read the rest of this entry »

On 10 May, Moldova’s President Nicolae Timofti and his Romanian counterpart Traian Basescu agreed in Bucharest to accelerate the development of energy projects already established, including Iasi-Ungheni (north-east country) gas pipeline. Read the rest of this entry »

Bulgaria can play a crucial mediator role in getting Azerbaijan near to a European Union entry, according to Bulgarian Parliamentary Chair Tsetska Tsacheva.

Tsacheva is currently on an official visit to Azerbaijan, where she has met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

Tsacheva and Aliyev have discussed their countries’ cooperation in the fields of energy, agriculture and transport, among others.

The regular quarterly report by the UN mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, will be presented to the UN Security Council in New York today.

In the latest report, UN Secretary General Ban Read the rest of this entry »

Macedonian Minister of Defence Fatmir Bisami will arrive on an official visit to Bulgaria.

On Thursday Besimi will meet with Bulgarian counterpart Anyu Angelov, as well as with high-ranking officials with the defence staff of the Bulgarian armed forces.

The accent of the talks will be put on the bilateral cooperation and its further improvement.

A Bulgarian parliamentary delegation, headed by National Assembly Chairperson Tsetska Tsacheva, will make an official visit to Albania.

The Bulgarian delegation includes Ekaterina Mihaylova, Deputy Chairperson of the National Assembly and Chairperson Read the rest of this entry »

A two-day conference on integration and contribution of Southeast European states to a common security and defense policy of the EU will be opened Thursday.

The conference, which is part of the project of security Read the rest of this entry »

Montenegro should start membership EU negotiations next month, the Enlargement Commissioner said, promising that the EU will continue to accept new members.

“The European Union continues to grow. Croatia Read the rest of this entry »

Bulgaria’s Ambassador in Sarajevo Angel Angelov presented his credentials to the Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bakir Izetbegovic, on Tuesday. Read the rest of this entry »

The second round of presidential elections in Serbia has started a day after Democrat leader Boris Tadic won the largest percentage of votes in the first round, on 26.7 per cent, closely followed by the Progressives’ Tomislav Nikolic who won 25.5 per cent.

Tadic and Nikolic therefore will go into the second round of presidential elections on May 20.

European Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule, during a visit to Skopje, has expressed his satisfaction with the dialog between Macedonia and the EU and with the progress achieved.

The Commission said the European program is the core of the public debate, despite the existence of lots of challenging issues.

OSCE Parliamentary Assembly will organize the spring economic forum in Batumi (Georgia) between May 11-14.

The forum is expected to focus the discussion on economic challenges of both regional and global importance.

Around 250 guests from different countries of the world, including 120 MPs will attend the event.

Romania’s parliament approved a new government on Monday. The Cabinet was installed during a ceremony in the evening.

The government was approved by 284 votes and 92 votes against the Cabinet.

Victor Ponta, the new Prime Minister, remarked Read the rest of this entry »

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon says that vandalism, threats and attacks on facilities of the Serbian Orthodox Church are on the rise in Kosovo, which could make difficult the on-progress Belgrade-Pristina dialogue.

In his latest report, the UN chief says the number of crimes against minority Read the rest of this entry »

Bosnia will organize local elections on October 7 in 139 municipalities, the Central Election Commission (CEC) announced on Monday in Sarajevo.

CEC President, Branko Peric, said that 3,213,562 citizens will be eligible for vote, 190,000 more than the last local election in 2008.

“Some of the financing will come from the state budget… and the other part of the money will be provided by the municipalities,” he said.

Greek political parties have to assure stability, confidence and solidarity to complete the effort to restore the economy. That is what Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, who handed in his resignation to the President of the country Carolos Papoulias said. Read the rest of this entry »

Romania’s new centre-left government headed by Victor Ponta on Monday won a vote of confidence in parliament, pledging to pursue reforms while seeking to correct social imbalances.

The cabinet will be sworn in later in the day during a ceremony at the presidential palace.

Moldovan President Nicolae Timofti during the visit to Romania that Moldova could join the EU in the next 7 or 8 years.

He noted that the EU integration needs procedures, which require time.

Timofti expressed hope that Moldova would meet all the conditions for the EU membership.

“To join the EU we need to work out a legislative base, which is close to the European one,” he said.

Serbia’s incumbent president Boris Tadic and opposition leader Tomislav Nikolic will contest the second round of presidential elections.

Preliminary estimates based on votes Read the rest of this entry »