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Serbian PM Cvetkovic (left) and EC President Barroso (right) in Brussels in January 2011. Photo by EPA/BGNES
EC President Jose Manuel Barroso has warned Serbia that is needs to move fast with political, legal, and economic changes in order to catch the EU train.
Barroso was in Belgrade Thursday where he stressed explicitly that Serbia needs to cooperate with the Hague Tribunal for the arrest and handing over of Gen. Ratko Mladic and former Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic to the war crimes tribunal in order to be recognized as an EU candidate country.
Mladic and Hadzic are believed to be hiding in Serbia like former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.
"Indeed, 2011 is the year of crucial opportunity for Serbia and Europe. You are on the right track, but time is running out," the European Commission head told journalists in Serbia's capital as cited by Bloomberg.
Barroso emphasized the EU needed to see results on Serbia's part before the summer.
The Serbian government plans to gain candidate status by the end of 2011.
Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic's administration, which faces elections in a year, is implementing changes to improve the judicial system and fight corruption and organized crime in hopes of getting a positive assessment from EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule on Oct. 12.
"Serbia needs to tackle these issues, Cvetkovic told the same news conference on Thursday, quoted by Bloomberg.
The United States has granted a temporary extension to the operating license of the Serbian oil company NIS, which is currently under sanctions, according to Serbia’s Energy Minister Dubravka Džedović-Handanović.
For weeks, the first confirmed deployment of hypersonic missiles in Europe outside Russia and Belarus has sparked intense debate among politicians and military analysts
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic claimed that Croatia was the foreign state most actively involved in what he described as an attempted “color revolution” in Serbia
Serbia has implemented measures to limit fuel prices and temporarily halt exports of petroleum products, a move affecting neighboring countries, including Bulgaria
Serbia is advancing its plans to build its first nuclear power plant, with a potential connection to the electricity grid by 2040, the country’s Minister of Mining and Energy, Dubravka Džedović Handanović, announced.
Russian Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko delivered sharp criticism of Bulgaria, highlighting its EU membership as a complicating factor in the delivery of Russian gas to Serbia
EU countries will each have to secure guarantees worth billions of euros for the loan to Ukraine funded by frozen Russian assets, Politico’s Brussels edition reports.
Bulgaria's Minister of Defense Todor Tagarev admitted the possibility that an explosive device might have been planted on board the crashed plane in which Yevgeny Prigozhin was traveling
The European Commission has announced that it is preparing criminal proceedings against Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Malta, and Portugal for incorrect application of the rules on the exchange of data on criminal records and the establishment of the relevant
The European Commission has started an evaluation of the Plan for Reconstruction and Development of Bulgaria, said the spokesman of the European Commission Eric Mamer. The document was submitted to the Commission on 15 October.
58% of Bulgarians do not support the introduction of the euro as the official currency in the country. This shows a study prepared by Trend agency specifically for the financial forum NEXT DIFI 2021, organized by b2b Media for the fifth year. The data dur
Too late Bulgaria began to explain its own position towards North Macedonia, as it should have been clear to our European partners some time ago.
Aniventure Comic Con Returns to Bulgaria with Star Guest Christopher Judge!
Global Fuel Shock: Oil Jumps Over 40% Since Iran War Began
