Tag: enlargement

Serbian authorities said they had uncovered a plot by "criminal clans" to bring down a government plane carrying a national leader, in the latest twist to a murky row over the links between the mafia and politicians.

Countries on the EU's eastern border have registered some progress in ongoing talks on visa-free travel to Europe, with Georgia winning a new €20 million EU assistance and reform package.

Turkey is committed to joining the European Union despite mounting frustration over decades of talks on the issue, but has little appetite for adopting the euro currency, a senior Turkish official said yesterday (13 February).

EXCLUSIVE / The European Union has never sent Turkey the required benchmarks to reform its justice system, making the country's EU accession process impossible to complete, according to a high-level official in Ankara who spoke to EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said today (4 February) that his country’s half-century wait to become part of the European Union was “unforgivable” and it should be admitted without delay.

More countries are likely to join the EU, but the process will extend to the end of the decade. At present, the EU lacks real strategic interests in incorporating most of the current candidates. Furthermore, political fragmentation within the EU tempers any desire to grow further, writes Stratfor.

The court of the European Free trade Area (EFTA) has ruled today (28 January) in favour of the Icelandic bank Icesave in a row over compensations to hundreds of thousands of savers from the UK and the Netherlands who lost their money when the bank collapsed in late 2008.

The prime ministers of Serbia and Croatia expressed their readiness to resolve tensions at a meeting in Belgrade yesterday (16 January). EurActiv Serbia reports.

A woman who helped found the Kurdish PKK rebel movement and two other women were found shot dead in Paris in the night of 9-10 January after execution-style killings that cast a shadow over peace moves between Turkey and the PKK guerrillas.

Macedonia's leading opposition party has accused the European Union of overlooking threats to democracy in the country, as anti-government protests continued yesterday (3 January) for the 11th day. 

Shunned by the EU with membership talks effectively blocked, Turkey feels empowered. It is no longer on the European periphery, but at the centre of its own world, aruge Nathalie Tocci and Dimitar Bechev.

The fight against corruption is one of the key conditions for Serbia's EU integration and one of the current government's priorities. Serbian authorities on 12 December arrested one of the richest people the country in a crackdown on graft, writes EurActiv Serbia.

The leak of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement (AA) turns the focus of their relations to a Shakespearean question: to sign or not to sign. And since Ukraine is ready to sign, it puts the onus on the EU, in the complex geopolitical games of Russia, Europe, the US and other influential international players, argues Roman Rukomeda.

The Serbian elections in May brought to power forces that are more ambivalent towards Europe, with a rising anti-EU sentiment in Serbia, write Ioannis Armakolas and Maja Maksimović.

Serbians reacted angrily at the acquittal of a former Kosovo guerrilla leader by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), less than two weeks after the court freed two Croatian military commanders who were accused of war crimes. EurActiv Serbia reports.

Enlargement Commissioner Štefan Füle told the representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo yesterday (27 November) that they have not been able to honour their main commitments for the country’s progress towards EU integration.  

A former government minister is among seven Kosovo Albanians charged with corruption by a European Union prosecutor, officials said on Friday (16 November).

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Turkey should consider bringing back the death penalty, a decade after Ankara abolished capital punishment as part of reforms aimed at EU membership.

The EU’s enlargement to include Turkey seems to be a victim of the Cypriot issue, which produces disproportionately negative effects and weak political visions on both sides. Consequently, the EU’s credibility and transformational power are being weakened, writes Kader Sevinç.

Today’s economic crisis acts as a catalyst for the “acceleration of history”, a phenomenon similar to the times after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, which brought something which was not expected - the split of Czechoslovakia - former Slovak foreign minister and current MEP Eduard Kukan told EurActiv.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took a step towards extending his powers today (6 November) after his ruling AK Party presented to parliament a proposal to set up a presidential system.

The European Union will lose Turkey if it doesn't grant it membership by 2023, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Tuesday (30 October).

Iceland residents voted overwhelmingly in favour of a new Constitution written by a Constitutional Council of 25 citizens who gathered feedback through social media. 

Germany's Foreign Ministry reassured Croatia that the country is on track to join the Union on 1 July 2013, following a surprising statement from Bundestag leader Norbert Lammert, who said that the former Yugoslav republic was not ready to join and that EU  enlargement should be frozen.