Netherlands

The Netherlands has rejected the ratification of Ukraine's association agreement with EU in a referendum, marking a victory for eurosceptics.

The referendum was called after a group of Dutch eurosceptics collected more than 400,000 signatures on a petition calling for a public vote to take place.

The Bulgarian men's national football team climbed one position to occupy the 69th place in the latest monthly FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking released on Thursday.

With a total of 508 points, Bulgaria is between the teams of United Arab Emirates and South Africa.

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis has recalled the country's ambassador to Sofia Anton Pacuretu.

Pacuretu is one of fourteen ambassadors, who were recalled with a decree signed by Iohannis on Tuesday.

Pacuretu has served as Romanian ambassador in Bulgaria since 2009.

Deliveries with a total weight of 28 kg containing qat, a psychoactive plant, have been confiscated by Bulgarian customs officers, the customs agency has said.

The entire quantity, worth around BGN 0.9 M (EUR 0.45 M), was confiscated at Sofia airport. Its final destinations were Belgium and the Netherlands.

Turkey has sent around 80 Syrian refugees to various countries of the European Union as part of a migrant agreement between the EU and Turkey that was signed to curb the refugee flow to the bloc.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu said 78 Syrian refugees had been sent to Europe to their new homes. 

In a bid to boost sluggish sales in the country, the Romanian government is to announce a 16.6-million-euro programme of incentives to encourage people to buy new electric and hybrid cars. 

The money is to be offered as a subsidy to companies or individuals who purchase an electric car or a hybrid vehicle that produce fewer than 50 grammes per kilometre of carbon dioxide emissions.

Germany will take the first Syrian refugees subject to an EU-Turkey pact on April 4, with its ambassador noting that the small group's "resettlement" will serve as a "test" to determine deficiencies in the EU-Turkey readmission deal reached this month, as Greece readies to send its first batch of migrants to Turkey. 

Bulgaria and Romania had the weakest road safety records among EU member states last year, according to official statistics of the bloc.

While all the EU member states have improved their road safety records since 2010, there was still a significant gap in their performance, the European Commission said in a statement on Thursday.

Germany's ambassador to Turkey has defended his attendance at the controversial trial of two Turkish journalists charged with espionage, while stating that the reason for his summoning to the Turkish Foreign Ministry was not his attendance but rather his photo from the courtroom shared on social media.

Air France-KLM is getting good traffic volume and has seen no major impact from attacks on the Brussels airport and underground system last week, its chief executive told Reuters.