Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic is going through a difficult time. Until now he was happy to maintain a balance between Russia and the West, adding a “sprinkling” of China and Turkey.
BALKANS
Croatian lawmakers on Friday approved a law that paves the way for the introduction of the euro currency next year. Croatia is due to replace the Croatian kuna with the euro on January 1, 2023.
As supply chain disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine and lockdowns in China hit Western European markets, Balkan companies are hoping to benefit from their close proximity and low labour costs.
Albin Kurti is a prime minister with an unusual history. The former student activist spent two and a half years in a Serbian prison in 1999-2001, he was jailed again by the authorities of Kosovo in 2007, while in 2018 he was convicted of perpetrating or instigating at least five tear-gas attacks against the Kosovo Parliament, in order to stop the law that would have granted limited autonomy to the Kosovo Serbs.
The US State Department has approved the potential sale of up to eight F-16 aircraft and related equipment to Bulgaria, in a deal valued at $1.673 billion, the Defense Department said on Monday.
Serbia’s incumbent president, Aleksandar Vucic, has secured 59.5% of votes in a presidential election, the State Election Commission said on Monday after counting 87.67% of ballots.
Talks on Albania’s and North Macedonia’s accession to the European Union need to start as soon as possible because any delay will make Western Balkans vulnerable to outside influence, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Monday.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov appeared anxious during an inspection with Greek Energy Minister Konstantinos Skrekas at the construction site of the Greek section of the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria pipeline in Komotini, northern Greece, on Monday.
In a letter sent to US President Joe Biden, Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani said that in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, joining NATO was her main national security priority.
Kosovo’s parliament approved a resolution on Thursday asking the government to start negotiations on NATO membership following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Athens is still trying to make sense of the new political and economic landscape created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Albanian Defense Ministry statement said that a contingent of 30 commandos of Albania’s armed forces would join Italian and Croatian KFOR troops in the city of Peja, 85 kilometers west of the capital, Pristina.
Russia launched a wide-ranging attack on Ukraine on Thursday, hitting cities and bases with airstrikes or shelling, as civilians piled into trains and cars to flee.
Notwithstanding considerable progress, the Balkan region may not look much different in the post-pandemic era unless a genuine sense of political accountability is developed.
With his recent trip to Albania and his reception in Ankara of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and his cabinet, Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been very much in the news in the Balkans in recent days.
Bulgaria’s new centrist government is determined to bring the Balkan country into the eurozone in 2024, Finance Minister Assen Vassilev told Reuters in an interview on Friday.
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