Visegrad

At the same time, development assistance is a tool of soft power and public diplomacy. This component, or side effect, of development assistance must be underlined when it comes to looking at TIKA's role as the most visible Turkish government actor in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Ivo Andric's 1961 Nobel Prize medal is part of an exhibition opening on Friday in the Montenegrin coastal town of Herceg Novi, in the house where the only Yugoslav winner of the prize lived for years.

The US Ambassador to Greece Geoffrey Pyatt welcomed an initiative by Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias to organise a meeting of his counterparts from the so-called Visegrad Group countries - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia - and the Western Balkans, describing it as a "smart call."

Pyatt said the move underlines Greece's role "as a builder of bridges across the region."

One of the main topics of the meeting between Borisov and Orban scheduled for November 25 in Budapest is finding the right measures to slow down the migrant influx.

For a few hours in Budapest, Borisov and Orban will also discuss topics on the agenda of the EU and how to reduce migration pressure, including strengthened border control.

The EU must listen more to its Eastern European members and find a compromise with them for solving the refugee crisis. The Vishegrad four have made proposals at the summit in Bratislava which must be discussed, stated European Parliament President Martin Schulz at a press conference in Berlin.

NATO should "have a land operation" along the Bulgaria-Turkey and the Greece-Turkey borders if its recently launched mission in the Aegean proves successful, Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov said on Tuesday.

Bosnia's Taxation Authority, UIO, said it had initiated an enforcement procedure for the repayment of 1.2 million Konvertible Marks [some 600,000 euro] from Andricgrad, the company owned mainly by Emir Kusturica, in a dispute over taxes.

Novinite has interviewed H.E. Marián Jakubócy, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Slovak Republic to the Republic of Bulgaria since 2013.

Our conversation with Mr Jakubócy comes just as Slovakia is ending is one-year rotational presidency of the Visegrad Four (Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic) on June 30.  

Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia could form a Craiova Group based on the model of the Visegrad Group to better promote their positions in Europe and their regional projects, Prime Minister Victor Ponta says.

Photo credit: LIVIU SOVA / AGERPRES STREAM

The establishment of a regional gas market among the Visegrad Group members boosts energy security in Central Europe and helps Bulgaria to diversify supplies, President Rosen Plevneliev has said.

Bulgaria's head of state made his remarks while meeting his Hungarian counterpart János Áder, who is on a two-day official visit to Bulgaria.