The Balkan route taken by hundreds of thousands of migrants to Europe is going to be closed, EU leaders will declare Monday at their summit with Turkey in Brussels, diplomats and officials said over the weekend.
Their statement — to be approved by leaders on Monday — was discussed by EU ambassadors on Sunday afternoon. “Irregular flows of migrants along the Western Balkans route are coming to an end; this route is now closed,” according to a copy of the document obtained by POLITICO.
We're presenting latest opinion poll data: 73.6% of #Montenegro citizens would vote in favour of #EU membership! http://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cc8CTF_WoAAYQjr.jpg
Thaci, whose nom de guerre was "the Snake", has consistently denied the explosive claims, telling AFP ahead of his election to the presidency that "under no circumstances did I violate international law".
"I know that the Kosovo struggle and the KLA struggle was a clean and just one. Nobody can rewrite history," the 47-year-old said, stressing Kosovo's full cooperation over the EU-funded court.
"We have met all the requests and demands, and because we have nothing to hide we fully support any attempts to do justice."
To mark International Women's Day, Albanian police have handed bouquets of flowers to randomly selected female drivers on Tuesday.
Filippo Grandi, the head of the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR), told members of the European Parliament Tuesday he is “deeply concerned” about the tentative deal reached between the EU and Turkey on returning refugees.
“As a first reaction I’m deeply concerned about any arrangement that would involve the blanket return of anyone from one country to another without spelling out the refugee protection safeguards under international law,” Grandi said, in an address to a plenary session of the Parliament in Strasbourg.
Bulgaria ranks seventh in the EU in terms of economic growth, with GDP rising by 3 per cent in 2015, higher than the 1.8 per cent average of the 28 EU member states, Eurostat data shows.
The EU countries which exceeded Bulgaria's economic growth are Sweden (4.5 per cent), Czech Republic (4 per cent), Slovakia (4 per cent), Romania (3.8 per cent), Poland (3.7 per cent) and Spain (3.5 per cent).
Greece was the only EU country to register an economic drop (0.8 per cent) in the last year.
Politicians in the Balkans frequently accuse the EU of double standards in its dealings with the region. Do they have a point?
In the months-long protests in Serbia, those marching every weekend are not all demonstrating for purely political reasons – but also to raise their voices over other burning everyday problems.