EU and Russia vie for influence in volatile Balkans region - by Dusan Stojanovic

For years, Russia has worked to gain influence in Southeast Europe, using Serbia as a foothold to establish a friendly pocket on a hostile continent.

The European Union finally is pushing back. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is embarking on a seven-nation Balkans tour Sunday to promote the EU's new eastward expansion strategy.

Russia mainly wants to discourage the Western Balkan countries — Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Serbia — from joining NATO. But Moscow also is trying to deter them from joining the EU.

The EU sees the prospect of membership as an incentive for reform in the volatile Balkans region, which was torn apart by war in the 1990s. Its expansion strategy puts Serbia and Montenegro in position to join should the bloc open its doors to more members, tentatively by 2025.

Read more here: https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/world/article201944074.html#storylink=cpy

Read more: EU and Russia vie for influence in volatile Balkans region | The Fresno Bee

Macedonia's Biggest Problem: It's Called Macedonia -by Edward P. Joseph

The “Interim Accord” was supposed to function as a stop-gap solution, halting the Greek blockade on its neighbor and opening diplomatic relations between the two countries, pending a permanent solution. Twenty-two years later and there is still no final agreement on the name—and the failure to close this chapter weighs heavily on the increasingly unstable Balkans. Thanks to rare political dynamics in both Athens and Skopje, there is a fleeting opportunity to resolve the name dispute. But doing so will once again take bold U.S. leadership.

Policymakers routinely scoff at the name dispute as a “ridiculous” Balkan squabble. In fact, it’s quite serious. Solely because of its complaint that Macedonia has stolen Greek heritage—the legacy of Alexander the Great—Athens continues to block Macedonia’s membership in NATO and its advancement towards the EU. The vacuum leaves the country—and the region—in limbo. Without a clear pathway to Brussels, Macedonia’s democratic development has stalled, perpetuating anxieties that the country could be divided.

The same syndrome exists in divided Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, each of which faces structural hurdles to joining NATO or the EU. Irresponsible nationalists in those countries have made strident calls for territorial division, a step that would reopen the conflicts of the 1990s. Exacerbating these trends, Russia and Turkey have begun to actively undermine Western strategy in the region. Once thought to be an inexorable process, the incorporation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia and Macedonia into Euro-Atlantic institutions is now open to question

In other words, “plenty” is the answer to Shakespeare’s eternal question of “what’s in a name?” .

Read more: Macedonia's Biggest Problem: It's Called Macedonia | The National Interest

Earthquakes Europe: Series of quakes hit Macedonia capital causing panic

 A moderate 5.3-magnitude earthquake, preceded by two and followed by several tremors, struck the Macedonian capital Skopje on Sunday, causing panic but only minor damage, officials said.

Skopje was almost destroyed by a powerful quake in 1963 which killed around a thousand people.

Sunday's quake hit at 3:10 pm (1310 GMT), with the epicentre in the Skopje area, seismologists said, adding some 10 weaker tremors were later registered.

"In Skopje and surroundings some damages have been reported that occurred on older buildings," the country's seismological service said in a statement.

The quake was felt throughout the Balkan country, Dragana Cernic of the seismological service said earlier citing reports on minor damage, such as cracked walls and broken furniture.

However, some 60 panicked Skopje residents sought hospital treatment, some suffering broken limbs while trying to flee.

All but three were later discharged, hospital officials said.

Parts of Skopje were without power and some mobile phone providers were down.

Many residents said they were terrified.

Read more: Flash - Series of quakes hit Macedonia capital causing panic - France 24

EU Migrant crisis: Greece recalls ambassador from Austria amid EU rifts - by Richard Galpin

Greece has recalled its ambassador to Austria amid sharp divisions among EU states over the migrant crisis.

It came after Austria hosted a meeting with Balkan states on the migrant issue, to which Greece was not invited.

Meanwhile, EU and Balkan interior ministers have met in Brussels to try to heal rifts over the migrant issue.
Speaking afterwards, the EU's migration commissioner warned that the bloc's migration system could be days away from complete breakdown.

Dimitris Avramopoulos said member states had until a 7 March summit with Turkey to curb the number of migrants.

"In the next 10 days, we need tangible and clear results on the ground," he told reporters.
"Otherwise there is a risk that the whole system will completely break down."

Austria, Serbia and Macedonia have taken their own steps to limit entry to migrants, angering Greece, which fears the controls will cause a bottleneck. The measures also threaten Europe's Schengen passport-free travel area that spans 26 countries.

Note EU-Digest:  Greece's migration minister has accused fellow EU countries of hypocrisy and lying about Greece's handling of the huge migrant influx from Turkey.

"This discussion that we do not have control of our border - this is a lie," Yiannis Mouzalas said.
"We have the best control of a sea border that anyone can have," he added.

Read more: Migrant crisis: Greece recalls ambassador from Austria amid EU rifts - BBC News

Balkans: The Balkanisation of Europe

As foreign policy experts list their problems for 2016, the Balkans never gets a mention. That’s strange, as the region is the microcosm of all the differing conflicts in Europe, and even further afield, Denis MacShane writes.

Denis MacShane is a former UK Minister of Europe in the Tony Blair government and works in Brussels and London advising on EU policy and politics. His latest book, Brexit : How Britain Will Leave Europe, was published in 2015 by IB Tauris.

The Balkans is Europe’s Zombie Zone, where the dead matter more than the living, where past feuds count for more than finding solutions based on compromise and where religion and churches still have political influence in a way unknown north of the Alps since the 1950s.

From the Aegean and Adriatic to the Alps, the region is full of unhappy nations with bad economics in competition with worse politics. Slovenia is busy putting up razor wire barriers on its borders with fellow EU member state Croatia.

Bosnia-Herzegovina remains unable to work as a single state. Serbia still is infected by the cancer of Milosevic Serb supremacism, egged on by Vladimir Putin, who loves the idea of keeping the Balkans as a problem region that his rivals in Washington and Brussels cannot solve.

Albania has yet to escape the deep corruption and criminalities of its first post-Communist decade. While the younger, more progressive leadership of Edi Rama makes its mark with European and American counterparts, the old trades of smuggling cigarettes, people, arms and prostitutes die hard.

Kosovo remains a nation without full status, as Greece and Serbia place every obstacle in the path of the young Kosovan state from getting full diplomatic recognition at the UN, or even the Council of Europe, where the norms and values of the European Convention on Human Rights, and the court that enforces them, are more than ever needed.

The only bright news is that Macedonia may be willing to talk to Athens about the name dispute. The claim the Slav Macedonians are the same as the Hellenic heroes who defended Western civilization against Persian tyranny is of course absurd.

But there are plenty of countries around the world that call themselves the  “United States” but they are not America. No-one outside of Greece thinks for a moment that the Skopje republic calling itself Macedonia is any threat to the real Macedonia of Thessalonika, and northern Greece.

Read more: The Balkanisation of Europe | EurActiv

Railroad Industry - Macedonia: China's first bullet train exported to Europe rolls off line

The first bullet train to be exported to Europe rolled off the production line at Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Co., Ltd，a subsidiary company of CRRC Corp, on Tuesday, according to China News Service on July 7.

The train was made in accordance with the national standard of Macedonia and meets the TSI (Technical Specification for Interoperability) standard. It boasts more complicated technology compared to the previous products exported to Europe, which include electric locomotives, subways and light rail trains, says the report.

The train is equipped with the advanced collision energy absorption system and it can ensure the safety of passengers and drivers when two trains collide. Safety is ensured running up to a speed of 36 km per hour, or a train running with a speed of 36 km per hour hits a 80-ton truck, and or a train running with a speed of 50 km bumps a 15-ton deformable barrier.

The train will run from north to south and travel through the capital of Macedonia. It will undertake 80 percent of the country's rail capacity, with a total length of 215 km. It is an important part of the 10th corridor of the Pan-European railway.

Macedonia's Minister of Transport and Communications Mile Janakieski thinks the cooperation helps Macedonia's dream: a long-planned bullet train project coming to fruition and has laid a solid foundation to further deepen bilateral cooperation in politics, economy and culture.

Read more: China's first bullet train exported to Europe rolls off line - People's Daily Online

Macedonia : Human rights court rules on CIA rendition

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has found that Macedonia violated the European Convention on Human Rights when it detained Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen, tortured him and handed him over to the United States authorities. The Court awarded el-Masri €60,000 in compensation for his ordeal.

Read more: European Voice | An independent voice on EU news and affairs

Balkan asylum seekers come under suspicion in EU - by D. Stojanovic

Azra Ajeti's fellow Gypsies have been buffeted by accusations of filing bogus asylum claims in the rich EU, but she says there's nothing phony about her family's life of misery. "We are starving," said the woman from this impoverished southern Serbian town. "Life here is a disgrace."

Ajeti's son was among some 60,000 people from Serbia and other Balkan countries who have sought asylum in Western Europe since the EU allowed visa-free travel from their nations three years ago.

Many EU and local officials describe the exodus as little more than a fraud in which mostly Gypsy migrants cross over knowing their asylum requests have no chance, their main goal to obtain the food, lodging and, in some cases, living expenses worth hundreds of euros (dollars) per month they are entitled to while awaiting an answer.

As a result of the continued surge, the EU states with the most Balkan asylum requests – Germany, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Luxembourg – are moving toward re-imposing visas for Serbia and Macedonia, the two countries that send the most asylum applicants.
Many seekers, however, cite racial discrimination in their home countries as the reason for their flight, saying it constitutes legitimate grounds for asylum.

Read more: Balkan asylum seekers come under suspicion

German sues Macedonia in EU human rights court

A German who claims the CIA illegally whisked him to a secret prison in Afghanistan appeared before Europe's human rights court Wednesday in what could be the final chapter of a case that has shed light on U.S. practices in the war on terror.

Khaled El-Masri, who is of Lebanese descent, says he was brutally interrogated at a secret CIA-run prison in Afghanistan for more than four months after being kidnapped from Macedonia in 2003, apparently mistaken for a terror suspect. He says he went on a hunger strike for 27 days and was eventually flown back to Europe and abandoned in a mountainous area in Albania.

Having failed with previous legal efforts in Germany, Macedonia and the United States, el-Masri has turned to the European Court of Human Rights as a last resort in the hope that it will declare that Macedonia breached his basic rights, said his lawyer.

Read more: German sues Macedonia in EU human rights court

Bloomberg: Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia Win EU Visa-Free Travel - by James Neuger

For the complete report from Bloomberg.com click on this link

Montenegro, Macedonia Win EU Visa-Free Travel - by James Neuger

The European Union proposed visa- free travel for citizens of Serbia, Montenegro and the Republic of Macedonia, extending some benefits of its common market to the Balkans. Citizens of the three will be able to enter most of the EU without visas once EU governments give approval. Passport holders from three neighboring Balkan countries -- Bosnia- Herzegovina, Albania and Kosovo -- will still need visas. “We know how much visa-free travel means to the people of the western Balkans,” EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn told a Brussels press conference today. “European integration is not only a matter of integrating nations, but also peoples and citizens.”

The move gives a fillip to EU entry hopes of Balkan countries, which have been stunted as the EU grapples with the economic crisis. Serbia, the largest ex-Yugoslav republic, has had its bid for closer ties blocked by the Netherlands, while Greece is barring the way for Macedonia.

DW: Macedonia Summit: EU Hopefuls Say Europe Needs the Balkans, Turkey

For the complete report from the Deutsche Welle click on this link

Macedonia Summit: EU Hopefuls Say Europe Needs the Balkans, Turkey

Balkan nations and Turkey are integral to European stability and should be swiftly accepted into the European Union, regional leaders said at a summit in Macedonia. The European Union would benefit from allowing the Balkans and Turkey to quickly join the bloc, the leaders of 19 mainly central and southern European countries said at a summit in Ohrid, Macedonia on Friday, May 2. Integrating the countries into the EU would stabilize south-eastern Europe, particularly in the wake of Kosovo's independence, they said. "Europe can't be whole without expanding to the western Balkans," Albanian President Bamir Topi said during the meeting's first joint session. The annual two-day summit was focused on the prospect of EU membership.

B92 - News - Globe - Greece will veto Macedonia's NATO bid

For the complete report from B92-Globe click on this link

Greece will veto Macedonia's NATO bid

Unless there is a compromise over its name, Macedonia's southern neighbor Greece will veto Skopje's effort to join NATO. The statement came Friday, from the Greek prime minister, Kostas Karamanlis.

"It is out of the question for Skopje to become a member of any organization, be it NATO or the EU, unless that country opts for adopting a name acceptable to all," he said during a televised debate in Athens.

novinite.com: EU Eases Visa Requirements on 3 Balkan Countries

For the complete report from novinite.com click on this link

EU Eases Visa Requirements on 3 Balkan Countries

The European Union signed on Friday an agreement with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and Montenegro on visa facilitation, making it easier for the citizens of the three western Balkan countries to acquire EU visas.

Macedonia, which has completed talks, and Serbia, who is in the final stages of negotiation, are expected to sign similar agreements in the near future.