Germany

Four Greek fighter jets will take part in a NATO exercise in Germany later this month, it was announced on Friday.

Greece will send the F-16 Block 52+ planes to join other aircraft from NATO countries as part of the JAWTEX exercise, which will take place in northern and eastern Germany from May 12-22.

The seventh edition of the festival, starting on May 8th, opens with screenings at the Sava Centre of movies about fascinating people.

The first is ‘The football coach Zoran and the African tigers’ by British film director Sam Benstead, which tells the story how coach Zoran Djordjevic created the first national team in the newly founded country of South Sudan.

An elderly Russian Communist Party activist takes part in the traditional May Day rally in front of the Bolshoi Theatre in central Moscow Thursday.

By Nikos Konstandaras

Russia's President Vladimir Putin demanded that Ukrainian forces pull back from the south-east of their country in a conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

A phone call between the two has held as Merkel decided to ask Putin for help in the OSCE hostage crisis of the last few days, Der Spiegel magazine has reported.

Merkel asks Putin to help free OSCE observers

MOSCOW -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel has asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to help free a team of OSCE observers captured in Ukraine by a pro-Russian militia.

BERLIN - The German government adopted on Wednesday an asylum bill that declares Serbia a safe country of origin, making asylum requests by Serbian citizens groundless in principle and shortening the procedure of repatriating asylum-seekers.

BELGRADE - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has congratulated Aleksandar Vucic on taking over as Serbian prime minister, announcing that her government will continue to provide strong support to Serbia on its path of reforms and European integrations.

Bulgaria's trade with Germany was EUR 5.3 B in 2013, an unprecedented amount for the last 24 years, according to data published Wednesday.

Exports to Germany have also surpassed imports to Bulgaria for the first time since the two states established bilateral relations.

German car parts maker Draexlmaier is to open a new factory in Pitesti, in southern Romania, where it will manufacture components and wiring.

Some 500 people will be hired, adding to the existing some 14,000 people who already work for Draexlmaier in its five Romanian factories, the company said on Tuesday.

SYRIZA MP Manolis Glezos on Tuesday quit Greece's cross-party committee on World War Two reparations, saying that the body had failed to live up to its task.

Glezos, a WWII resistance hero, said that instead of seeking ways to claim German compensation for Nazi crimes, the committee had degenerated into a “study group.”