Latest Articles about Balkans
GAZPROM SEDUCING ROMANIAN GOVERNMENT WITH SOUTH STREAM
Romania could be described until now as the staunchest and perhaps last remaining loyalist in the Western-backed Nabucco project. While four of the five Nabucco participant countries (save Romania) and a number of other countries in the region are variously negotiating Russian options, such as... MORE
ROMANIA IS THE LATEST TARGET FOR GAZPROM’S SOUTH STREAM TEMPTATIONS
On October 17 in Moscow, Gazprom president Alexei Miller conferred in the presence of the Romanian ambassador with the general managers of Romania’s Transgaz and Romgaz companies,. Gazprom’s communiqué implied, and subsequent leaks to the Russian media corroborated, that the Russian side proposed including Romania... MORE
IS GAZPROM MANEUVERING TO OBTAIN ROMANIAN ALUMINUM?
Romania’s important aluminum industry has long held an attraction for Russian companies. Two years ago their efforts came to the attention of the Romanian Intelligence Service (Serviciului Român de Informaţii), the SRI, which viewed these initiatives with growing concern. A 2006 memo from the SRI... MORE
NABUCCO GAS PROJECT FACING A CASCADE OF DEFECTIONS
Romania seems to be the one remaining loyal participant in the Nabucco pipeline project, which is planned to carry Caspian gas via Turkey and the Balkans to Central Europe. Defections are now cascading from this U.S.-backed, top-priority project of the European Union. The project can... MORE
MEDVEDEV FINALIZES GAS AGREEMENT WITH SERBIA WHILE MOSCOW ENCOURAGES VIOLENCE IN BELGRADE
Having previously encouraged assassination attempts against Georgia’s leaders, Russian state television has now lauded the assassination of Serbia’s pro-Western prime minister Zoran Djindjic by a local ultranationalist in 2003, and in the same breath assailed that country’s incumbent pro-Western president Boris Tadic. On February 21... MORE
KREMLIN CONTINUES TO BLAST THE WEST OVER KOSOVA
Mobs, angry over Kosovar independence, burned the U.S. Embassy in the Serbian capital Belgrade last week, promoting a new outburst of anti-Western, anti-U.S. rhetoric in Moscow. The pace was set by President Vladimir Putin, who during an informal Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit in... MORE
THERE IS A KOSOVA PRECEDENT, THOUGH NOT WHAT MOSCOW SAYS IT IS
Russia has failed to exploit Kosova’s independence from Serbia as a “precedent” for conflict-resolution through partition in Georgia, Moldova, or Azerbaijan (see EDM, February 19). Nor could Moscow stop Kosova’s move to Western-supervised independence and its international recognition. Moscow had insisted that Kosova’s internationally recognized... MORE
KOSOVA AND THE “FROZEN” CONFLICTS OF THE FORMER USSR
The leaders of the breakaway mini-states of Transnistria in Moldova, Karabakh in Azerbaijan, as well as Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia welcomed Kosova's unilateral declaration of independence this week and its subsequent recognition by the international community. At a joint press conference this week... MORE
KOSOVAR INDEPENDENCE RECOGNIZED, RUSSIA’S BLUFF CALLED IN ABKHAZIA AND SOUTH OSSETIA
On February 17 Kosova declared officially its independence from Serbia. On February 18 the United States and several major European countries recognized Kosova as an independent state. More than 20 (out of 27) European Union member countries are prepared to extend recognition. Russia anticipated this... MORE
NATO EXPANSION IN THE BALKANS
While the issue of Ukraine’s possible entry into NATO is currently filling the European press, Macedonia is also facing the issue of accession. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Macedonian Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki to discuss the issue on February 14; later that... MORE