Hashim Taci

Scheduled local elections in four northern mainly Serbian districts of Kosovo were thrown into crisis on Wednesday when the Central Election Commission, CEC, failed to certify candidates from the main Serbian party in Kosovo, Srpska Lista.

The candidates did not receive the necessary support from the CEC, meaning their candidacies have been rejected.

Much work is to be done before the EU can take in new members. That was the main message that resonated through Sofia's National Palace of Culture on Thursday, as EU and Western Balkan leaders met for the long-awaited summit.

French President Emmanuel Macron echoed this, saying that he did not favour movement before "we have all certainties and genuine reforms made".

One is closed, while there is no information about the three remaining, the Association of Journalists of Serbia (UNS) said it learned.

These are considerably different data compared to those UNS received from EULEX a month ago when we were told that there were only two open investigations.