Corina Cretu

BELGRADE - Serbian PM Ana Brnabic on Friday thanked European Commissioner for Regional Policy Corina Cretu for her personal support for the EU's enlargement policy and for assisting Serbia's efforts to meet the EU membership requirements.

BRUSSELS - European Commissioner for Regional Policy Corina Cretu will be paying a working visit to Serbia on Thursday and Friday.

Serbia is already a very active and valuable partner in cooperation, especially in the Danube and Adriatic-Ionian macroregional strategies, Cretu said before the trip to Belgrade.

A coalition of green NGOs has called on the European Commission to intervene in Bulgaria, after the country's ruling party announced a proposal that the environmentalists said would limit access to justice by increasing costs.

The European Commission said on Tuesday it is providing 155 million euro ($184 million) to Romania to finance projects for modernization of water infrastructure in six counties, SeeNews reported. 

The financial support will be directed to six major projects in Arges, Dambovita, Maramures, Prahova, Satu Mare and Vaslui counties, the European Commission said in a press release.

As tensions rise on the eastern Aegean island of Chios where thousands of migrants are living in squalid conditions in overcrowded reception centers, local residents are to stage a protest rally on Thursday, calling for the immediate relocation of all the migrants.

“I want to congratulate Greece because not a single euro was lost in the last programming period” stated European Commissioner for Regional Policy Corina Cretu, addressing the special standing committee of European Issues and the special standing regions committee of the Greek parliament on Wednesday.

The mayors of Lesvos, Chios, Samos, Leros and Kos - the five eastern Aegean islands worst hit by the refugee crisis - secured a European Union pledge of 50 million euros in emergency assistance during their recent trip to Brussels, they told reporters in Athens on Thursday. 

Ministers from the biggest party in Bulgaria's outgoing government lashed out at the leading opposition force on Monday after the latter alleged the European Commission planned to freeze millions worth of funding allocated to the country.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is set to announce an agreement for a cash injection of 1 billion euros to Greece's four systemic banks that will be guaranteed by the Greek state, paving the way for a return to state-backed financing.

Romania's North-East region has the highest rate of absorption of European Funds in the 2007-2013 period, said on Saturday, in Iasi, European Commissioner Corina Cretu, in the debate titled "Dialogue with citizens".