Balkans

BELGRADE - Serbia is a major investment hub for the entire Balkans and its people are capable and educated, International Republican Institute Board of Directors member Randy Scheunemann said in Belgrade on Monday.

The United States said it looks forward to deepening its cooperation with the government that Greeks will elect in a statement issued on Monday.

Former prime minister of North Macedonia Zoran Zaev refers to the benefits of the Prespes agreement for his country, Greece, and the wider Balkan region, in an interview with Kathimerini.

In other news, Polish parties try to outdo each other over child handouts; the media is in the headlines in Czechia; and Slovakia's new technocratic government gets to work.

In connection with the statement of the Prime Minister of North Macedonia before the Council of Europe, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria emphasizes that it is unacceptable that the statement of concern for the fundamental rights of a given community is used as a pretext for unfounded and caustic attacks on a member state of The European Union.

BELGRADE - Serbian PM Ana Brnabic met with World Bank representatives for the Western Balkans on Wednesday.

The parties noted that Serbia was seeing major economic success and that it had registered GDP growth of 9 pct over the past four years - three times the GDP growth in the EU and above the level of economic growth in the region, the Serbian government said in a statement.

In most Balkan countries excluding Bosnia and Kosovo, where Turkish state influence is stronger, a majority of Turkish expatriate citizens voted for President Erdogan's rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu and for opposition parties at the weekend's elections.

Tourism is a mainstay of the Croatian, Montenegrin and Albanian economies. But growing labour shortages mean hotels, restaurants and bars are increasingly looking abroad for staff.

"Europe starts in Berlin and reaches Athens and goes through all the Balkans. Without the Balkans, without Greece, there can be no European Union," says the former president of Germany, Christian Wulff (2010-2012), in an interview with Kathimerini looking back on the difficult relationship between Greece and Germany during the years of the economic crisis.

There's a string of genuinely important subjects that have to do with the country's future which are missing from the public debate as Greece heads into general elections. It is not only important issues that are absent from the pre-election agenda, but especially a vision for Greece in the 21st century, driven by a strategic plan for its recovery and international advancement.