Liberal democracies

BELGRADE - Around 70 percent of Serbian citizens will travel abroad for various reasons this year, and in most cases the destination will be Greece, survey conducted by MasterCard company shows.

According to the survey, 69.4 percent of Serbian citizens will travel abroad in order to visit their family and friends, for work, education or vacation purposes.

BELGRADE - Serbia's Justice Minister Nikola Selakovic met on Wednesday with political director of the Austrian Foreign Ministry Jan Kickert to discuss Austria's support for Serbia in the accession talks with the EU and assistance in building a stronger judiciary.

BELGRADE - Serbia's First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic will participate in the Informal meeting of the Western Balkans Foreign Ministers in Kotor, Montenegro, on Thursday.

BELGRADE – From January to May this year, Serbia saw a total of 786,333 tourist visits, down four percent from 2013, a result of the number of domestic tourist visits decreasing despite a larger number of foreigners arriving, data from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia shows.

BELGRADE - A concert entitled Concert for Europe has been held at the residence of the Italian ambassador to Serbia to mark the start of Italy's presidency of the EU, and Ambassador Giuseppe Manzo said at the event Serbia had always been a part of Europe and was drawing ever closer to the start of the accession talks, with Italy's support.

Greece’s largest toy seller Jumbo saw an 8 percent rise in sales for its fiscal year, helped by a robust performance in Cyprus and Bulgaria, the company said on Tuesday.

The rise beat Jumbo’s guidance for annual sales growth of 4-6 percent, the company said in a corporate update.

The report published this week examined two decades of trade and foreign relations between Athens and its Balkan neighbours and found that the economic crisis and crippling recession that hit Greece since the 2008 debt crisis severely hurt its neighbours’ chances for a speedy accession in the EU.

Bulgaria remains relatively stable in terms of the most desired second homes purchase destinations for British citizens.

In end-June, Bulgaria occupies the 11th place in the ranking of the online portal TheMoveChannel.com after the country has managed to reach 10th place twice in 2014, Investor.bg reports.

The most popular tourist destinations among EU citizens are Spain, France and Italy, according to a new report on the travels of Europeans in 2012.

According to the released data, 85% of all trips were in Europe, Bulgaria's Nova TV informs. The report states that citizens of EU countries prefer to go around Europe, as most of the vacations were spent in neighboring countries.

Centrgaz, a subsidiary of Gazprom, could step in the construction of the South Stream pipeline's Bulgarian stretch, according to a Russian daily.

Vedomosti's website reports that Centrgaz, which has not fallen under EU or US sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, has already won the tender for South Stream in Bulgaria's western neighbor Serbia.