Sofia Summit: EU ‘waiting room ticket’ for Western Balkans

Aleksandar Mitić, OPINION Eighteen years ago, as AFP correspondent, I attended the first EU-Western Balkans Summit, held in Zagreb in 2000. Enthusiasm and talk of fast entry into the EU dominated after the era of conflict in the 1990s. Almost two decades later, however, we are still talking about “European perspectives”, while EU investment in…

Serbia-NATO: cautious cooperation

Aleksandar Mitic, OPINION Serbia’s Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin is meeting in Brussels with the NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller to discuss further cooperation within the Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme but his intention will certainly be to cement Belgrade’s commitment to military neutrality which excludes NATO membership. Serbia is implementing the Individual Partnership Action…

Czechs protest against “stolen Kosovo”

Aleksandar Mitic, correspondent Some two hundred Czechs and Serbs, holding a large banner with the inscription “Kosovo is Serbian”, gathered on Friday at the St. Venceslas square in Prague to mark their opposition to the unilateral declaration of secession of Kosovo from Serbia, proclaimed on February 17, 2008. Jaroslav Foldina, a deputy of the Czech…

Mitrovica Bridge construcion

“The constructive commitment we have seen in the last two meetings of the Dialogue in Brussels today brings results, to prove once again that only dialogue and political leadership can deliver and for the better”, – says the statement of EU top diplomat Federcia Mogherini over the issue of the re-opening of the Mitrovica Bridge….