Serbia

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was on Thursday in Belgrade "in an official visit," the daily Blic said it learned unofficially.

The Belgrade-based paper wrote that Blair spent one day in Serbia, and quoted a government source as saying:

Ivica Dacic has warned ethnic Albanians from the south "not to compare the ZSO with the formation of an association of municipalities with Albanian majority."

Serbia's 101-82 victory over Italy secured it the top spot in Group B of the EuroBasket competition currently under way.

Commenting after the match on Thursday in Berlin, head coach Aleksandar Djordjevi saidhis team was yet to play difficult matches at the European championship.

Roma associations in Macedonia - home to a large community - have condemned EU plans to exclude Balkan nations from claiming asylum as part of measures to cope with the growing refugee crisis.

Romania has scored surprisingly well in a new world ranking of countries concerning the transparency of their budget arrangements.

The open budget index of the International Budget Partnership, IBP, for 2015, ranks Balkan states very differently on the global scale.

In the 2015 index, Romania came in ninth place globally, with an index of 75 out of a maximum of 100.

The prime ministers of Balkan neighbours Bulgaria and Serbia discussed the migration crisis in Europe and its implications for the region on Thursday, the Bulgarian government's press office announced.

Hungary's Interior Ministry is proposing to declare a "state of crisis due to mass migration" as of 15 September, in line with recently adopted tougher border control legislation, Reuters reported on Thursday.

The proposal will be discussed at  a cabinet meeting on 15 September, the newswire quoted a Hungarian government spokesman as saying at a news conference.

Macedonia is considering building a Hungarian-style fence on its southern border with Greece to curb an expected fresh inflow of refugees from the Middle East and Africa, Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki was quoted as saying on Thursday.

Pristina will supply school textbooks to Albanian communities in Serbia while Belgrade will do the same for Serbs in Kosovo, they agreed for the first time since the war in 1999.

Bujanovac municipality President Nagip Arifi has announced a "constitutive session of an association of municipalities with Albanian majority."

The meeting will take place in Presevo, southern Serbia, on September 12, the Beta agency is reporting.