The OSCE runs police development units in the western Balkans.

Stabilizing the western Balkans remains a priority on my country's foreign policy agenda.

These efforts focus on Central and Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans and Southeast Asia.

Kosovo s declaration of independence has put stability in the Western Balkans back on Europe s agenda.

In that regard, Slovakia has in recent years been particularly active in the western Balkans.

Just this past weekend, Bratislava hosted another international conference on development in the western Balkans.

Coordinated donor assistance to help countries in the Western Balkans to assess and improve airport security.

We have had wide experience in providing good offices to the countries of the western Balkans.

Approximately 150 million people in South eastern Europe the Western Balkans, Ukraine, and Turkey aim at becoming EU citizens.

What Romania wishes to see in the Western Balkans is sustainable security and stability, based on democracy, freedom and tolerance.

At the EU Western Balkans summit in Thessaloniki in June 2003, all of the EU s member states reiterated their unequivocal support to the European perspective of the Western Balkan countries.

Over the last 20 years, the goal of EU membership has proved an invaluable asset for stabilizing, democratizing, and modernizing the western Balkans.

The EU bet here is that, on the back of Croatia s accession, the enlargement logjam in the western Balkans will finally be broken.

The enlargement of NATO and the EU has embraced a dozen or so states in Central and Eastern Europe and in the western Balkans.

The year 2005 is a significant one for Kosovo and the whole region of the Western Balkans. We need stability and security in Kosovo.

ROME Twenty years after the collapse of Yugoslavia and the communist regime in Albania, the western Balkans region is at a turning point once again.

On the topic today, the best peacebuilding offer we see for the Western Balkans is their inclusion in the mainstream European and Euro Atlantic integration processes.

But the EU has so far failed to prepare the Western Balkans for accession, in line with its leaders promise at their Thessaloniki summit in 2003 to admit the Western Balkan states when they meet the Union s standards.

Third, the Balkans.

The EU must learn from this experience to develop an accession strategy for the Western Balkans, whose development has been delayed by a complex post conflict transition process.

Only then would genuine reconciliation of the Western Balkans be possible, thus opening the road to lasting stability and prosperity of the whole region within the European mainstream.

Sleepwalking in the Balkans

The Balkans New Normal

The Balkans on Trial

In his speech at the conference, His Excellency Mr. Eduard Kukan, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic and former Special Envoy of the Secretary General for the Balkans, said, The future of the western Balkans region lies, above all else, in deepening collaboration and building trust .

The Western Balkans a term used only since 1999 comprises Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia (FYROM), Montenegro, Serbia, and Kosovo, with a combined population of roughly 22 million.

Japan co hosted the Ministerial Conference on Peace Consolidation and Economic Development of the Western Balkans last April and is working on the follow up activities to that meeting.

There are three distinct causes of the current migration to Europe the Western Balkans continuing economic malaise the turmoil in the greater Middle East and Africa s civil wars and conflicts.

The key issue is to ensure that the western Balkans keeps its focus on the European agenda, which means that the EU must provide guidance and encouragement through tangible initiatives.

Romania is particularly pleased with the attention paid to the Kosovo issue, which is a challenge for the western Balkans and for the whole of Europe in the coming period.

Institution Building in the Balkans

In our opinion, the pivotal issue with regard to the stabilization of the Western Balkans is the future status of Kosovo, which remains a potential element of instability in the region.

Europe s Second Chance in the Balkans

Saramago s anywhere is the Balkans everywhere.

Indeed, we need to send a strong signal to our neighbors in the Western Balkans that their European perspective is still alive, as reaffirmed by the European Heads of State in 2008.

As in the Balkans a generation ago, when Western leaders moved to end the bloodiest European conflict since World War II, the French are ready to send planes and pilots to Syria.

Until the 1900s, yogurt was a staple in diets of people in the Russian Empire (and especially Central Asia and the Caucasus), Western Asia, South Eastern Europe Balkans, Central Europe, and India.

These are difficult times for the Balkans.

The prospect of EU membership is at the heart of EU policy in the western Balkans, where we are starting to show (for example in Bosnia Herzegovina) a dangerous disinclination to apply tough conditionality.

Thus, although Serbia s loss of sovereignty over Kosovo will undoubtedly be painful in the short term, the long term gains for the entire Western Balkans region from eventual EU accession are vastly more significant.

But the lack of effort on all sides to find a lasting compromise to the dispute over Kosovo s independence threatens to undermine much of the progress made in the Western Balkans towards stability and democracy.

The current economic crisis is leading public opinion in the western Balkans to lose confidence that peace and economic growth are still within reach, creating the risk of a possible slowdown in the integration process.

As the EU celebrates the accession of Croatia which will undoubtedly provide a short term boost to the reform process throughout the western Balkans it faces a profound choice in its engagement with the region.

The Balkans, northern Turkey, Crimea, and the Caucasus.

Most international intelligence assets have left the Balkans.