Member state of the European Union

Ivan Isailovic, mayor of the small Serbian town of Krupanj, is off next week to seek investors not in Munich or Paris, but in Istanbul - a sign of Turkey's growing influence across the western Balkans that worries some EU states.

Beta agency is reporting this on Wednesday, citing Bender's interview for the European Western Balkans website.

"For Kosovo the formal accession process has hit a wall. Formally there is no way to move forward for Kosovo now," he said, adding: "With 5 EU member states not recognizing Kosovo, Kosovo has no enlargement perspective. Spain has made this very clear now."

According to the Spanish newspaper, "the reason is not the EU foreign policy" - instead the goal is to avoid having the name and the signature of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy "on the same document, at the same level" as that of the Kosovo leader.

Spain is among five EU member-states that do not recognize Kosovo as independent.

According to Kaymakci, the EC favored the Balkan candidates, ignoring Turkeys difficulties and failing to provide a clearer accession perspective for Ankara.

The ambassador said that the report "has some problems."

Turkey is moving rapidly away from the path of European Union membership, the top EU official in charge of negotiations said on Tuesday, as Brussels' delivered its harshest criticism yet of Ankara's shift towards authoritarianism.

Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos greeted with satisfaction Thursday's statement by the European Council on Turkey, saying it reflects European solidarity, as he hosted a meeting with the new Defense Minister of Cyprus, Savvas Angelides on Friday in Athens.

The upcoming Turkey-European Union (EU) summit in Bulgaria is a "very important step" in resolving issues between the EU and Turkey, according to a senior EU official on Wednesday.

The remarks came ahead of a key EU-Turkey summit set for March 26 in Varna, Bulgaria -- the current EU term president - that would bring together EU leaders and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The European Union will recommend starting accession talks with Albania and the Republic of Macedonia, widening the bloc's push into the Western Balkans, according to Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn.

The second world war is over but the first world war is not yet finished." Those were the words of a senior Turkish official I met recently in Ankara. He was speaking of the Middle East, but it was the sort of comment I might well also have heard in Moscow, in Kiev or in the Balkans, about the state of affairs on the European continent.

Everybody realizes that the conditions have to be met, that quality comes before speed, that the strategy is not an invitation to do away with conditionality, Hahn, who is in charge of EU's neighborhood policy and enlargement negotiations, told an informal meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria.

The meeting on Friday gathered EU and Western Balkan foreign ministers.