Zoran

MPs in the mainly Serbian entity of Bosnia, Republika Srpska, will discuss the entity budget for next year at a session scheduled for the last days of December.

The budget for 2015 is set at 2.033 million KM, or 1.039 million euro, which is around 65 million euro less than this year's.

BELGRADE - Latvia's Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma said that Latvia will support the beginning of Serbian EU accession process during her country's EU presidency.

In her statement to Tanjug, Straujuma congratulated Serbia on the excellent organization of the Meeting of Heads of Government of China and Central and Eastern European Countries.

BELGRADE - Serbian Parliament Speaker Maja Gojkovic on Monday received a delegation of the Italian Senate, headed by Vannino Chiti, chairman of the committee on EU policy, who said that bilateral relations between the two countries are very good and that Italy is interested in even stronger economic ties.

BELGRADE - The corn harvest has practically been completed, and the yield stands at around eight tons per hectare, while wheat was planted on 600,000 hectares, which is more than last year, Vukosav Sakovic, director of the Zita Srbije association, told Tanjug.

BELGRADE - Political parties in Serbia either lack the mechanisms and procedures to fight corruption, or they are inefficient, said the participants of a conference on fighting corruption in Serbia and the role of political institutions.

BELGRADE - Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said Tuesday that nobody was asking Serbia to recognize Kosovo.

Commenting on media reports about Germany laying out 11 requirements to open chapters in accession negotiations with the EU, Vucic stressed that it was nowhere written that Serbia had to recognize Kosovo.

BELGRADE - Serbia's Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday that the government expects economic growth next year, despite opposite projects from the IMF.

"We expect economic growth next year, which will come as a great surprise in the first year of fiscal consolidation," he told reporters in Belgrade.

BELGRADE - Djordje Milicevic, deputy head of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) group in the Serbian parliament, said Monday that Belgrade expected its dialogue with Pristina to be resumed as soon as the political situation in Kosovo allowed and a community of Serb municipalities was set up.

BELGRADE - Patrick Auroy, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment, visited on Friday the Military Technical Institute (VTI), Serbia's leading scientific and research institution for research and development of weapons and military equipment.

Macedonian officials and Pekabesko reacted with surprise after the Republika Srpska agriculture ministry said on Friday that it had banned the trade and import of all the company's meat products.

The Macedonian Food Safety Agency said that it had not heard about the ban.