Member states of the Union for the Mediterranean

Holiday bookings in the first couple of months this year for Cyprus, Morocco, Egypt and Greece from the German market posted the biggest annual rise in 2017, according to GfK.

Turkey will not attend a meeting on Syria in Brussels organized by the European Union, with diplomatic sources saying Ankara was not satisfied with an EU response over the format of the meeting and its own title. 

Apart from the war in Syria and its repercussions, Turkish interests and "legal rights" in the Aegean and the Cyprus peace negotiations are among Turkey's top foreign policy priorities, according to the country's National Security Council, which convened this week.

A declaration of a common language unveiled on Thursday in Sarajevo has angered those who insist four different languages are spoken across Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia, including Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.

He told the local media: "How would it be supported? Who in Croatia can support it?" 

The German Alltours tour operator has a 50% increase in reservations for Greece following the trend of the other German tour operators. A similar increase can be seen in reservations for Bulgaria and Spain, while Turkey’s reservations have plunged almost 50% .

Syrian and Libyan investments have continued to flow into Bosnia despite vicious wars in both countries, data from Bosnia's Central Bank shows.

Data obtained by BIRN also shows that the proportion of capital flowing into Bosnia from Gulf countries has soared, with 81 per cent of foreign direct investment, FDI, originating from the region in the first three-quarters of 2016.

The Turkish-Egyptian Business Council has met in Cairo for the first time since the military coup in Egypt in 2013, calling for a revival of bilateral economic and trade ties. 

Austria has announced that it has no intention of allowing Turkish ministers to conduct a propaganda campaign on its territory for changes to the Turkish constitution.

"We will try to ban these due to security considerations," stated Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern to the biggest Austrian media ORF.

The window of opportunity to find a permanent solution to the Cyprus problem is closing - unless some players step in and stick their hands in to keep the window from closing completely.

One interesting player could be Israel. A Cyprus peace deal would speed up Israel's project to provide gas to Turkey, the new Israeli ambassador to Ankara said last week.

Greek Cyprus saw its best ever receipts from tourism in 2016, data showed on March 1, in a record year for the Mediterranean holiday island considered a regional safe haven.

Tourism income last year reached 2.36 billion euros ($2.48 billion) compared to 2.11 billion in 2015, an 11.9 percent increase, according to official data.