At a confirmation hearing in Brussels, the EU's enlargement and neighborhood policy commissioner-in-waiting today gave strong backing to the EU's existing commitments to welcome the western Balkan countries and Turkey, but stopped short of endorsing the membership hopes of Ukraine and other eastern neighbors.
Serbia will formally apply for European Union membership today and take a major step in its efforts to turn its back on the war, poverty and international isolation of the 1990s.
The European Union has deferred a decision on opening membership talks with Macedonia, after neighboring Greece opposed an early start to the negotiations.
The European Union will allow visa-free travel inside the 27-country bloc for Serbia, Macedonia, and Montenegro from December 19, but keep restrictions on Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina, EU ministers have agreed.
Serbia will probably apply next month for eventual European Union membership, but will first wait for a green light from Brussels to proceed, the country's president said.
The former Yugoslav state of Macedonia cannot start talks to join the European Union until a dispute over its name is solved, a Greek minister told Reuters.
What's your idea of the best place in which to live? Many people would probably answer that palm trees and a gleaming beach would be a good start to their idea of earthly paradise. But in real life, the country which scores best on a whole range of economic and quality-of-life issues is a good deal colder.
Kosovo's parliament has ratified an agreement ending an eight year dispute with Macedonia over a border region used by gunmen and smugglers.
The European Union's has executive arm said that Croatia could wrap up EU entry talks next year and recommended that the bloc start membership negotiations with Macedonia.
Macedonia's leading academic institution has said it will revise a new encyclopedia after protests by the Balkan country's Albanian minority as well as in neighboring Kosovo and Albania.
Most of the 15 people who drowned when a boat carrying more than 70 tourists sank on a Macedonia's Lake Ohrid were Bulgarians, Macedonia's interior minister said.
The United States will soon have a new deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. The man who is vacating the post after four years, Matthew Bryza, has announced he will be replaced by Tina Kaidanow, a longtime diplomat with more than 10 years of experience in the Balkans, who most recently served as the first U.S. ambassador to Kosovo.
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