Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, left, and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic attend a press conference in Belgrade, Monday.
BALKANS
Leaders of the six Western Balkan countries, including Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, met on Monday in Skopje, North Macedonia to discuss reforms needed to access the European Union growth plan presented last October.
The United States has received Kosovo’s request to purchase Javelin anti-tank missiles, the US ambassador to Serbia on Thursday told President Aleksandar Vucic, who expressed “deep disappointment.”
Hundreds of Kosovars rushed to Pristina airport to travel to EU countries on Monday after visas for Europe’s open-borders Schengen zone were waived.
European Union leaders agreed on Thursday to start accession talks with EU candidates Ukraine and Moldova while granting formal candidate status to Georgia.
Why are the Turkish president’s efforts to spread his influence among Muslim populations falling on deaf ears? In a recent speech in Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdogan donned the mantle of leader of the Muslim world and spoke of the “geography of his heart,” with crowds of Islamists responding with the slogan “Here is the general, […]
Throughout the Western Balkans, women are harassed, raped, beaten and killed, often by their partners and after repeatedly reporting the violence to the authorities. The region is staunchly conservative, with a centuries-old tradition of male dominance, but the problem surged following the wars in the 1990s and the political, economic and social crises that have persisted since the conflicts ended.
Vice President of the European Commission Margaritis Schinas in his speech on Monday at the Thessaloniki Summit 2023 highlighted that no concessions will be made for the admittance of countries in the Western Balkans and the greater region to the European Union.
Leaders from the European Union and the Western Balkans will hold a summit in Albania’s capital on Monday to discuss the path to membership in the bloc for the six countries of the region.
The opportunities, challenges and prospects of a better connection between Greece and the Western Balkans in the field of transport dominated a meeting held on Friday between Infrastructure and Transport Minister Christos Staikouras and the head of the Western Balkans Transport Community, Matej Zakonjsek.
The 9th Western Balkans Civil Society Forum, to be held in Thessaloniki on October 19-20, will bring together approximately 100 participants, including a broad range of civil society representatives from the EU and the Western Balkans, as well as representatives of EU institutions, international organizations and regional governments.
In what is seen as a message to Tirana on Thursday, European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas said that accession to the European Union rests on “full respect for democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Monday following a trilateral summit in Varna, Bulgaria that together with the prime ministers of Bulgaria Nikolai Denkov and of Romania Marcel Ciolacu “and the very useful” participation of European Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas, “We reaffirmed the excellent relations between our countries. We agreed to deepen our cooperation at bilateral and multilateral level and in the wider region.”
European Union leaders have declared support for adding new members to the bloc but set no target date and warned candidates such as Ukraine that there would be no short cuts.
National Economy and Finance Minister Kostis Hatzidakis visited Tirana on Tuesday to take part in the Berlin Process meeting of economy ministers on the topic “Common Regional Market – A step toward the EU single market.”
The Kremlin said on Monday it was closely monitoring what it called a “potentially dangerous” situation in Kosovo, where ethnic Serb gunmen stormed a village at the weekend, battling police and barricading themselves into a monastery.
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