Balkans

Kosovo president and prime minister Fatmir Sejdiu and Hashim Thaci called on Kosovo residents to maintain peace. They also invited them to have faith in the “effective rule of law and investigations of crimes”. “Local legislative institutions and EULEX, within the authorities they have, will take all needed measures to …

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said Friday he doubted EI foreign ministers would agree to start Macedonian membership talks next week because of a long-running name dispute.

Radovan Karadzic’s legal adviser says the former Bosnian Serb leader has rejected his court-appointed lawyer and is unlikely to be ready to resume his genocide trial as scheduled on March 1. 

Albania’s opposition Socialist Party is set to launch fresh protests Friday to demand either recount the vote in a controversial June election or hold another. Socialist Party leader Edi Rama accused Prime Minister Sali Berisha of the Democratic Party of rigging the parliamentary elections. The Socialists lost to PM Sali …

Bulgaria is prepared to participate in both the South Stream and Nabucco gas line projects, Bulgaria’s Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, declared Friday. Borisov spoke upon conclusion of his meeting with the Special Envoy of the United States Secretary of State for Eurasian Energy, Richard Morningstar, who is on an offical …

NATO has accepted Montenegro in its Membership Action Plan, MAP, an essential stepping stone towards full membership in the Alliance. However, Bosnia and Herzegovina failed to join the Plan because the country has not made enough progress in necessary reforms, foreign ministers said. However they promised that Bosnia and Herzegovina …

As part of the post-monitoring dialogue with Bulgaria, Serhiy Holovaty (Ukraine, ALDE), Chair of the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), will travel to Sofia on 7-8 December on a fact-finding visit, PACE announced.

Croatian Foreign Ministry has started a procedure to add Montenegro on the list of countries whose citizens do not need visas to travel via and stay in Croatia for up to 90 days. Up to now Montenegrin citizens could travel to Croatia without visas, but the regime was temporary and …

Chief  UN War Crimes Prosecutor Serge Brammertz said on Thursday that Serbia has made “constant progress” in efforts to finalise cooperation with The Hague-based Tribunal, but the arrest of war crimes fugitives Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic remains the key issue. Presenting his progress report on Serbia’s cooperation with the …

The Skopje-Athens name row could be solved via international arbitrage, Croatian President Stjepan Mesic told journalists after meeting his Macedonian counterpart Georgi Ivanov on Thursday in Skopje. Croatia is nearing the end of its EU accession talks. Zagreb’s talks were stalled for almost a year when neighboring Slovenia blocked Croatia’s …