Austria

Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz and Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic have presented the cooperation action plan for 2016.

It provides for the Austrian government supporting Serbia in opening more chapters on its way to the EU and cooperative efforts in tackling the refugee crisis.

Austrian Foreign Sebastian Kurz said in Belgrade on Tuesday that his country "will have to limit the number of refugees it will accept this year."

He also said that Austria will continue to cooperate with the countries of the Western Balkans "in order to reduce the influx of migrants."

Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday that early Serbian parliamentary elections would be scheduled "within the deadline."

Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said in Belgrade Monday evening that he believed 2016 would be an even better year for Serbia's progress on EU path.

Austria does not want to simply close its borders and leave the Western Balkan states to deal with the refugee issue on their own, says Sebastian Kurz.

Speaking in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina on Monday, the Austrian foreign minister added that instead, his country "wants to find a common solution to the problem."

Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz arrived in Sarajevo on Sunday evening to begin a several-day tour of the Balkans.

He is due to arrive in Belgrade on Monday afternoon.

Austria has asked the European Commission for EUR 600 M to cover the costs related to providing care for a larger-than-expected number of asylum seekers accepted by the country last year.

The request had been sent by Austrian Finance Minister Hans Jörg Schelling to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on January 25, Austrian daily Kurier reported on Saturday.

The parliamentary presidency voted to reintroduce sponsorship of an event in Bleiburg in Austria commemorating the deaths of tens of thousands of Nazi-allied Croatian troops and civilians.

"Europe has forgotten that history is fundamentally tragic," said Manuel Valls, the French prime minister. "If Europe can't protect its own borders, it's the very idea of Europe that could be thrown into doubt. It could disappear - not Europe itself, not our values, but the European project, the concept we have of Europe, that the founding fathers had of Europe."

The Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra (BIPO) is set to go on tour to two of the most important countries in the history of classic music, Austria and Germany. 

The tour will begin in Vienna and continue to Germany's Friedrichshafen and Frankfurt before ending in Nurnberg.