Background:

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn presented in Brussels last Wednesday the new European Commission (EC) report on Macedonia, assessing the country's progress towards kick-starting its EU membership negotiations.

"Now we can recommend the opening of negotiations for membership", said Rehn.

The positive recommendation comes after the EC said Macedonia "has made satisfactory progress in fulfilling the Copenhagen criteria", according to Rehn. Macedonia "achieved convincing progress and substantively addressed key reform priorities".

A joint EU-US mediation effort aimed at ending years of political deadlock in Bosnia-Herzegovina ended on Wednesday (21 October) with no agreement on giving the central government a stronger role over the semi-independent Serbian and Muslim-Croat entities.

The talks were spearheaded by Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt, who used to be the first international high representative in Bosnia after the 1992-1995 war and is now chairing the EU presidency.

Despite wanting to see the office's powers downgraded, Mr Dodik strongly rejected the legislative package put forward by the EU-US mediators, saying it risked diluting the power of Republika Srpska. In the past years, he had repeatedly called for a referendum on separating from the Bosnian federation.

As for the Bosniaks and Croats, they rejected the proposals for not going far enough in strengthening the state institutions.

Under the 1995 Dayton peace accords, two separate entities were created - the Bosnian-Croat federation and Republika Srpska - linked by a common parliament, a three-member presidency and a council of ministers. However, the division of powers remains unclear, especially with the office of the international representative in place, and each side interprets it the way it suits best its own interests.

The European Commission (EC) last week gave a thumbs-up to Serbia's implementation of European standards on the road to EU membership and called on the Union to implement its Interim Trade Agreement with Serbia.

Serbia signed the accord and the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU in April 2008. Both agreements were suspended pending Serbia's full co-operation with The Hague tribunal. Currently, the only EU member blocking the Interim Trade Agreement is the Netherlands, which demands that fugitive Ratko Mladic be apprehended and extradited.

Serbia, however, still has some work to do. The country must take a more constructive stance on Kosovo, pass the Vojvodina Statute, combat corruption and crime, continue with judiciary reforms, enhance the rights of minorities, and help bring those that attack journalists, human rights activists and members of the gay and lesbian population to justice.

Tomislav Nikolic, leader of the Serbian Progressive Party, also noted that European officials reprimanded Serbia's excessive budget spending, adding that if the trend continues, "Serbia will be heavily indebted with no advantage of becoming an EU member."

Tanja Miscevic, head of the Serbian EU Integration Office from 2005 to 2008, also expressed restraint in assessing the report.

Leaders of Bosnia's divided communities are meeting to try to end years of political stalemate and reduce the danger of renewed conflict.

European Union and United States representatives are mediating the talks in Sarajevo.

The aim is to bring in constitutional reform and prepare Bosnia for eventual EU and NATO membership.

But the Bosnian Serbs strongly oppose any moves that would jeopardise their desire for more autonomy.

The high representative in Bosnia is an international figure with considerable domestic power.

The current incumbent, Valentin Inzko, has described the situation in the country as serious.

"Bosnia is in a state of paralysis," he told the BBC.

"Things are not moving at the moment. And I deeply regret all this nationalist rhetoric. It's not helpful, it's destructive and many, many wars have started with bad rhetoric. So we should really avoid it."

Germany's new conservative-liberal coalition has decided to support 'open-ended' EU-Turkey negotiations and favour a 'privileged partnership' in case they fail, it emerged on Wednesday.

The deal is a compromise between calls to reject Ankara's EU bid, coming from chancellor Angela Merkel's Bavarian sister party (CSU) and the Turkey-favourable stance of her liberal junior partner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP).

Ms Merkel was a strong supporter of the 'privileged partnership' before becoming chancellor. She now maintains that Turkey must fulfil accession criteria and also that the EU has to honour its commitments. But if negotiations were to fail, the coalition agreement is likely to say that Turkey could be offered a 'privileged partnership.'

The wording of the coalition agreement is very similar to the one Ms Merkel negotiated with her former government partner, the Social Democratic Party.

EU commissioner Olli Rehn, in charge of enlargement, said the Macedonian government should see the move as "very strong encouragement" to "finally settle the name issue," however. The reference concerns an 18-year old dispute between Macedonia and neighbouring Greece about the use of the name Macedonia.

Croatia, hoping to join the EU in 2011, is "nearing the finishing line" after years of negotiations, said Mr Rehn, but needs to further tackle corruption and organised crime "before negotiations can be concluded."

The commission report urges Turkey to do more to ensure freedom of expression and freedom of religion as well as bolster the rights of women and trade unions.

Ankara has been lagging far behind Zagreb in its EU progress in part due to poor relations with EU member Cyprus, with whom it still has to fully implement a customs agreement. Progress is also slow due to a lack of enthusiasm on the part of several member states for Turkish membership and the pace of Turkish domestic reform.

Of the remaining five entities - Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo - that want to join the EU, Mr Rehn had the most to say about Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The war-torn country was recently given an ultimatum by the EU and the US to sort out internal problems between Bosnian Muslims, Croats and Serbs by 20 October.

Defining the country as of "paramount importance for the region and for the European Union," Mr Rehn said that Bosnia and Herzegovina could only consider an application for EU membership once it "can stand on its own two feet."

"No quasi-protectorate can join the EU," he said, spelling out that the Office of High Representative would have to be closed down first. The post was created as part of the peace deal that ended the 1992-1995 war in the country, and can only be closed after a positive international assessment.

Meanwhile, the Serbian government, which is being pushed to arrest two war crimes suspects from the 1990s, was praised for being "stable" and "demonstrating" a high degree of consensus on EU integration as a strategic priority."

But even as the EU tries to bind all of the countries of the western Balkans and Turkey ever more closely through political and economic ties and the promise of eventual membership, there are continuous doubts about whether it has the political appetite to go through with another large round of expansion.

Apart from Croatia, strongly supported by Germany and where EU membership is virtually assured, internal EU question marks remain over the rest.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — European and U.S. officials met with Bosnian leaders on Friday to discuss ways of overcoming a stalemate that has kept the nation behind others seeking to join NATO and the 27-nation European Union.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg; Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt; and Olli Rehn, the EU's enlargement commissioner, said they will return on Oct. 20 to see how much local leaders have coordinated their positions.

Croatia, hoping to be the European Union's next country to join the bloc, resumes membership negotiations on Friday (2 October).

The talks are being restarted now that a border dispute between the former Yugoslav nation and its neighbour and EU member state Slovenia is to be put to arbitration overseen by Brussels.

The 27-country bloc and Croatia are expected to open six new chapters of the 35 policy areas that are up for negotiation at an intergovernmental accession conference in the European capital.

It is also believed that an additional five may be closed on Friday as well.

If the results live up to diplomat expectations, Zagreb will have opened 28 chapters and closed 12 as of the end of the day.

The parliamentary committee on EU affairs in Ljubljana voted unanimously on Tuesday (29 September) in favour of lifting the veto, the Croatian news agency Hina reported. 

The move follows a decision by the two countries' prime ministers, who recently said the border dispute that had poisoned their relations should not present an obstacle to proceeding with Croatia's EU accession negotiations.

Slovenia said Friday it was ready to lift its veto on neighbour Croatia's European Union accession talks immediately, after the two prime ministers agreed on how to solve an 18-year old border dispute.

"The government will immediately propose (to parliamentary committees) that Slovenia removes restraints for Croatia's EU negotiating process," Slovenia's Prime Minister Borut Pahor said after talks with his Croat counterpart Jadranka Kosor.

The two committees met later Friday but said they needed more time to consider the issue. They are expected to decide on whether to allow Slovenia to lift the veto early next week.

The news comes as a boost to Zagreb -- whose EU bid has been on ice for almost 10 months -- and other EU hopefuls in the Western Balkans, where bilateral disputes abound.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country holds the rotating six-month presidency of the EU, welcomed the agreement and said Croatia can now continue EU accession talks.

The president and prime minister of Kosovo have walked out of talks with EU representatives in the first serious bilateral rift since Kosovo declared independence last year.

The talks in Pristina on Thursday (27 August) were designed to soothe ethnic Albanian fears over a new police co-operation agreement between the Serbian interior ministry and the EU's police mission to Kosovo, Eulex.

The co-operation protocol will help Serb and EU police share information on cross-border organised crime and is a pre-condition for Serbia to obtain visa free travel to the EU in 2010.

But Kosovo leaders said that Eulex' direct dealing with Serbia undermines its attempt to establish a sovereign state.

"The Kosovo leaders reiterated in the meeting their firm position against the protocol and emphasised that from today any debate and discussion on this issue is completely closed. Kosovo does not take any obligation and responsibility for issues which it has not decided in a sovereign way," the office of Kosovo president Fatmir Sejdiu said.

An agreement to be signed between EULEX and Belgrade, designed to help solve a 'visa problem' for Serbian nationals, apparently became an irritant for Albanian extremists, who overturned 28 SUV cars belonging to the EU mission in the capital Pristina. 

Many Albanian Kosovars insisted that it was up to Kosovo, not EULEX, to sign any international agreements