Organizations

Economic powerhouse Germany wants EU members to be given binding targets to slash their debts under new spending rules being prepared by Brussels, a document seen by AFP has showed.

In November, the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, put forward plans to reform the Stability and Growth Pact that limits how much EU countries can borrow.

Defense Minister Hulusi Akar has had a phone conversation with United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to discuss NATO expansion with Finland and Türkiye's demand of supplying 40 new F-16s from the U.S., the Turkish ministry said in a statement.

Albanian tourist revenues in Greece rose spectacularly by 157% last year compared to 2021 and by 33% compared to 2019, Greek Deputy Minister for Tourism Sofia Zacharaki said after attending "The Future of Environmental Sustainable Tourism in Albania" (FESTA) forum in Tirana on April 3-5.

Clashes broke out in Paris next to a Left Bank pub favored by French President Emmanuel Macron, Reuters reported.
The awning of the Caf de la Rotonde was briefly set on fire.

BELGRADE - An International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission completed on Wednesday the first review under the current 24-month stand-by arrangement with Serbia, in place since December 2022, the Serbian Finance Ministry said on Wednesday.

In a statement, it said all objectives to date had been accomplished and that the IMF Board of Governors was due to approve the first review in June.

Aleksander Čeferin, a 55-year-old Slovenian lawyer, won another term as president of UEFA, the European governing body of football, at the 47th UEFA congress in Lisbon on 5 April.

Čeferin has been at the helm of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) since 2016 and was the only candidate for the job, so the vote, which was unanimous, was a mere formality.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has pledged to help Bulgaria, via the Pentagon, with the supply of replacement resources of many weapons.

This was stated by the acting foreign minister and future ambassador to NATO Nikolay Milkov to Bulgarian journalists in Brussels. He participated in the meeting of the first diplomats of the member countries of the pact.

Sweden needs to take further steps for Turkey to ratify its NATO membership bid, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday, a day after Finland formally joined the military alliance.

According to him, if the former leader of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army is found guilty, it will mean that NATO fought against Milosevic's regime in 1999 with the help of a war criminal.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias and Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu met briefly on the sidelines of a NATO meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels on Tuesday.

In a post on his official Twitter account, Dendias said he also spoke with the foreign ministers of Albania, Canada, Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway and Spain.