Member states of La Francophonie

The European Commission has approved Bulgaria's map for granting state aid between 2014 and 2020 within the framework of the new regional aid guidelines adopted in June 2013.

BELGRADE - Serbian Minister of Culture and Information Ivan Tasovac will meet Macedonia's Minister of Culture Elizabeta Kanceska-Milevska on his first official visit to this country on Thursday.

The European Union set Albania on the road to membership on Tuesday, agreeing to give the small Balkan state the status of candidate to join in recognition of the government's recent reform efforts.

The construction sector, which grew by 13.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2014, is seen as the main driver of the current growth rate, which matches official economic forecasts for the year.

The new government platform submitted by Nikola Gruevski after he won the April general elections set economic growth for this and next year at three to four per cent.

A new report by Freedom House ranked Kosovo, Bosnia, Albania and Macedonia lowest in the Balkan region in terms of democratic standards.

Kosovo is rated the worst in the region, with a democracy score of 5.14 on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 represents the highest level of democratic progress and 7 the lowest.

According to the survey by the Albanian Institute for International Studies, AIIS, 77.1 per cent of Albanians back the country’s integration into the European Union, compared to 85 per cent in 2013.

The figure, which comes from the survey published on Tuesday, is the lowest since AIIS first conducted the opinion poll in 2006.

The coalition has launched a campaign called ‘Census Now’, saying that Macedonia must not be held hostage by political elites that interrupted the last census because of the sensitive issue of how many ethnic Macedonians and Albanians live in the country.

In April the Bulgarians' travels increased moderately by 4.6%, compared to April 2013, shows the data of the National Statistics Institute (NSI).

For comparison, in the entire Q1 2014, they increased by 25%, year-on-year. 

The latest report of the World Bank says Macedonia’s economy grew last year by 3.1 per cent of GDP, well above the regional average of 2.2 per cent growth in 2013.

EU supports improvements to Balkan railroads