UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s regular quarterly report on Kosovo will be presented at UN Security Council meeting on February 8.

The last UNSC session on Kosovo, held late in November, was marked by a heated discussion between the U.S., Great Britain, France and Germany on one side, who called for an immediate removal of barricades in the north, and the officials of Russia and China on the other, who expressed the need to respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Serbia.

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić said on the occasion in New York that Serbia would continue to call for peace and security, and advocated dialogue as a solution to the problem.

The Georgian side agreed to allot the site for the construction of a new mosque, Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Ertugrul Gunay said at a meeting with Georgian Minister of Culture Nika Rurua in Ankara.

“We want to intensify the cooperation in the sphere of tourism Read the rest of this entry »

Parliament in non-eurozone Bulgaria voted Friday to join an EU budget pact for tighter discipline but with conditions regarding tax policy and exemption from certain financial obligations.

“Bulgaria’s parliament supports joining the treaty on stability, coordination and Read the rest of this entry »

The dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina will continue in the beginning of February.

An agreement on Kosovo’s participation in regional forums is expected to be reached in the beginning of next month. The decision should present a compromise between the firm positions of the two countries.

Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha says Albania will sign an agreement with the EU law mission in Kosovo, EULEX, to institutionalize cooperation on the investigation into organ harvesting allegations.

According to a statement, Prime Minister Berisha “agreed fully on the need to sign an agreement or Read the rest of this entry »

European Union economics commissioner Olli Rehn said euro-zone governments may have to increase their contribution to Greece’s debt deal and declared he was hopeful agreements could be struck soon to increase euro-zone bailout funds and International Monetary Fund resources.  Read the rest of this entry »

A debate on Russia’s recent elections will be held at the PACE meeting on Thursday attended by the Georgian delegation led by parliamentary majority leader Petre Tsiskarishvili.

The issue of holding a debate on Russia was discussed Read the rest of this entry »

The Bulgarian government decided yesterday to grant visa exemption to Turkish citizens who have special (green) passports.

The resolution will allow Turkish citizens holding valid special passports to enter and transit through the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria without visas and reside temporarily therein for a period not exceeding three months within any six-month period from the date of first entry.

Serbian President’s “four-point proposal” to resolve the stalemate in ethnically riven North Kosovo has received the thumbs down from local Serbs and from the nationalist opposition in Serbia.

Kosovo Serbs have dismissed Serbian President Boris Tadic’s plan to end the turbulence in Northern Kosovo, saying they rejected a similar plan years ago. Read the rest of this entry »

Slovenia’s Foreign Minister, Samuel Zbogar, will take over as the EU’s leading envoy in Kosovo, while Washington has named Tracey Ann Jacobson as its new ambassador.

The European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, appointed Zbogar, who has Read the rest of this entry »

EU mediator in the Belgrade-Priština dialogue Robert Cooper met with Belgrade team chief Borislav Stefanović on Wednesday.

The main topic of their meeting was Kosovo’s regional representation. Read the rest of this entry »

Counicl of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) will discuss Wednesday the report on Serbia’s fulfillment of conditions arising from the CoE membership.

According to the report, Serbia has met a great number of obligations and achieved considerable progress. Read the rest of this entry »

Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Nino Kalandadze has today met with a delegation of the Federal Foreign Department, headed by director of the fourth political department Claude Wild.

The sides discussed urgent issues of bilateral and multilateral relations between Georgia and Switzerland.

The Georgian side was informed about the specific activity of the fourth political office of the Swiss Foreign Department, which oversees the mediation efforts between Georgia and Russia.

Greece is aiming to complete negotiations on its debt swap deal by the end of the week, the government’s spokesman said Wednesday, adding that the talks were at their “most delicate phase.”

Charles Dallara, head of the Institute of International Finance — the body representing banks and other investment firms — is to head back to Athens Read the rest of this entry »

Bulgaria’s Cabinet approved, at a scheduled meeting on January 25 2012, a proposal to accept Schengen visas as equivalent to Bulgarian visas for short stays.

This means that travellers who have Schengen visas will be Read the rest of this entry »

Bulgaria’s new President Rosen Plevneliev, who was officially inaugurated on Sunday, has been congratulated by his Macedonian counterpart George Ivanov in a phone conversation. Read the rest of this entry »

FYROM Vice Prime Minister Teuta Arifi and her Greek counterpart, Theodoros Pangalos, are to meet on Wednesday in Athens in a move to revive moribund talks on the ‘name’ dispute.

The meeting of the senior politicians will be the first formal contact between officials from two countries since Greece formed a government of national unity in November.

Arifi is expected to elaborate Macedonia’s hopes of joining NATO and EU and its expectations that Greece will not impede the moves following the December 5 judgment of the International Court of Justice, ICJ, in The Hague.

Kosovo’s judiciary still fails to meet European and international standards, since it is not fully independent from the executive branch, a newly released OSCE report finds.

The independent functioning of the judicial system in Kosovo still faces a number of shortcomings, and judges continue to Read the rest of this entry »

Prime Minister Igor Luksic says all segments of Montenegro’s society should be involved in the country’s EU negotiations.

Luksic said that the internal consensus reached on European integration has been one of the most important successes of the state, and must be maintained as Podgorica continues its path towards membership in the European bloc. Read the rest of this entry »

Bosnia’s state prosecution has suspended an investigation into 58 people suspected of assisting Hague indictee Radovan Karadzic while he was in hiding.

Karadzic, who is currently on trial at the Hague Tribunal accused of crimes against humanity and genocide in Bosnia, was in hiding in Bosnia and Serbia from 1996 until 2008, when he was captured in Belgrade and transferred to the Hague to face trial.

The case against the 58 people suspected of assisting Karadzic financially was suspended due to lack of evidence.

Romanian Prime Minister Emil Boc appointed a new foreign minister on Tuesday, a day after sacking his predecessor over disparaging remarks about street protesters.

“Prime minister Boc has submitted to President Traian Basescu the proposal to Read the rest of this entry »

The European Parliament has urged the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to create a joint expert committee with Bulgaria to tackle the sensitive issue of history education in the country.

The committee’s task will be to further the objective interpretation of historical events, increase Read the rest of this entry »

Serbia can become candidate for EU membership if it fulfills the conditions in time, EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule said on Tuesday.

Fule met with Serbia’s Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić in Brussels today. Read the rest of this entry »

Bulgarian President Rossen Plevneliev is going to Brussels on January 25 2012 for talks with European Unions leaders as well as Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Plevneliev’s office said.

The trip to Brussels is Plevneliev’s first since taking office as head of state.

His programme includes meetings with European Council President Herman van Rompuy, European Commission President Jose Barroso, European Parliament President Martin Schulz

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has welcomed the results of Sunday’s Croatian referendum in which approximately 66% of the voters supported the country’s EU membership.

“This positive outcome of the referendum is a result of the Read the rest of this entry »

Serbian President Boris Tadic has said that a solution to the issue of Pristina’s representation in regional forums “could be found within 24 hours”

Tadic told reporters on Monday that a speedy solution would be possible “if U.S. diplomat Philip Reeker’s Read the rest of this entry »

An EU prosecutor has asked Russia to assist two of its citizens to appear as witnesses in Kosovo’s Medicus case, as they are believed to be victims of organ harvesting.

Nick Hawton, a spokesperson for the EU rule of law mission in Kosovo, EULEX, said on Tuesday that the EU prosecutors are in constant Read the rest of this entry »

Romania’s Prime Minister Emil Boc on Monday sacked Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi after he disparaging remarks towards protesters who took part in recent mass Read the rest of this entry »

Croatians head to the polls today to vote in a referendum on their bid for European Union membership.

Voters will be asked simply whether or not they support Croatia’s EU membership bid.  Read the rest of this entry »

General elections and Muslim upheavals

The recent general elections in Turkey, as well as the regional context marked by the 2011 upheavals in several Muslim countries in the Mediterranean basin have brought into the light the evolutions in Turkey, a country seen by most of the analysts as a future important geopolitical actor. Portrayed either as a “bridge” between West and East or as the power center of a Muslim political entity-to be, Turkey is equally interesting and disturbing.

For most analysts, the main factors that generate the interest – and worries – are Turkey’s ambitions as an Islamic leader in a future modern Caliphate (where it would, however, have to compete with Saudi Arabia and Iran), but also to develop its own sphere of influence within the neighboring Turk countries, thus achieving a new “Great Read the rest of this entry »

Recent figures

The most recent World Gold Council (WGC) Quarterly Report indicates a gold demand of 1053.9 tonnes for the third quarter of 2011, that is an increase of 6% compared to the same period last year. This equates to US$ 57.7bn, an all-time high in value terms. According to the World Gold Council’s Gold Demand Trends report, this increase was driven by investment demand which rose by 33% year-on-year to 468.1 tonnes, generating record quarterly demand of US$ 25.6bn.

The report mentioned another significant development: investment demand in Europe reached a record quarterly value of € 4.6bn, equating to 118.1 tonnes – a year-on-year increase of 135%. The increase in overall investment demand was all the more impressive given the sharp gold price correction in September, which encouraged a wave of profit taking among bar and coin investors. Virtually all markets saw strong double-digit growth in demand for gold bars and coins. Read the rest of this entry »

The recent call of Vladimir Putin – who practically faces no obstacle in becoming Russia’s future president – for an “Eurasian Union” sparked not only concerns about Russia’s possible attempt to restore Kremlin’s domination over other former Soviet states, in what analysts have called an “authoritarian consolidation”, but also fears of the influence it may have in Europe, in the context of the current economic crisis that made the European Union a less attractive project to potential new members. Last but not least, the recent developments brought into the limelight the possibility of a materialization of the supposedly “ancient” ideas promoted by the pan-Slavic and pan-Orthodox (“Third Rome”) ideologies.

By all indications, Vladimir Putin plans to stay in the Kremlin for two more presidential terms — another 12 years — as he is enabled to do by the recently amended Constitution. Read the rest of this entry »

“Eurabia”: the concept and the phenomenon

The recent upheavals in the Arab world, as well as the demographic phenomena in Europe have brought into the lights the idea of “Eurabia”, a concept far more complex than what it was considered several years ago, when it was launched by researcher Bat Ye’or[1].

Most analysts of the phenomenon sustain that Europe is rapidly being transformed into “Eurabia” – a synthesis of Arab and European culture, a grand cultural project undertaken by European and Arab elites to create an open Mediterranean zone of economic, demographic and cultural symbiosis between Europe and the Arab world.

In her book, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis (2005), Bat Ye’or denounced this project as a foolish alliance in which Europeans think that by helping the Arabs destroy Read the rest of this entry »

Extremism in modern and post modern times is characteristic for all societies and areas of thinking/belief. There have always been people attracted by the extreme (or, as they put it, the “pure”) expression of a religion/theory. So far, the so-called “fringe” movements of all kind were not considered a considerable threat to well-established societies. However, the developments of the last decades favored the surge of extremism in most of its forms (social, religious etc.) and we are witnessing an increased number of violent activities, as well as an increased number of people attracted by the extremist theories.

In democratic societies, individuals or groups that advocate the replacement of democracy with an authoritarian regime are usually branded extremists, in authoritarian societies the opposite applies. Political agendas perceived as extremist often include those from the far left or far right as well as fundamentalism or, as a more general term, fanaticism. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Overview

The separatist phenomenon and the corresponding autonomist and secessionist parties and movements in Europe, as in the rest of the continents, is a result of long historic processes and, as such, they are a constant challenge for the nation-state authorities, as well as for the supra-national ones (the European Union’s governing and legislative bodies).

According to recent statistics, Europe has more than 50 such separatist movements, including 18 in Italy and nine in Spain. France has four irredentist movements, four secessionist movements, five autonomist movements and several movements to change the borders of departments. There is one each in Poland, the Netherlands, Romania and Switzerland. Parties in Greenland also want to secede from Denmark. Read the rest of this entry »