News archive of October 2014

BELGRADE - Serbia's Minister without Portfolio in charge of European integration Jadranka Joksimovic talked Friday with the French Parliament's foreign affairs committee chairwoman Elisabeth Guigou about Serbia's European integration and ways to improve bilateral relations between the two countries.

The refugee center in the western village of Kovachevtsi will be closed, according to Nikolay Chirpanliev, Chair of Bulgaria's State Agency for Refugees.

In an interview for Presa daily, Chirpanliev says that the authorities will have to move some 100 people, who currently live there, to other centers.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras on Friday appointed Nikos Dendias as defense minister, replacing outgoing Dimitris Avramopoulos, who assumes the European Commission’s immigration portfolio next week, with Costas Skrekas to take over Dendias’s spot at the helm of the Development Ministry.

The Supreme Court of Cyprus on Friday ruled as unconstitutional four bills on bank foreclosures whose passage by Parliament prompted international lenders to halt payments on the country’s 10-billion-euro bailout.

The decision should open the way for Nicosia to receive the next tranche of 436 million euros, which was blocked last month.

Closer cooperation between Greek and Turkish coast guard authorities has led to 11,000 undocumented migrants being prevented from entering Greek borders and returned to the neighboring country since the start of the year, data presented by the Merchant Marine Ministry Friday showed.

Peripheral European government bond yields fell on Friday as a surprise decision by the Bank of Japan to expand its monetary stimulus saw investors pile into riskier assets.

Yields on Spanish and Italian debt fell by 5 and 6 basis points respectively, while Greece led with a 22 basis point decline.

[Reuters]

The government on Friday condemned the desecration of the Holocaust memorial in Athens after it was vandalized with graffiti signed by the far-right group “Unaligned Meander Nationalists.”

In a statement, Deputy Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos pledged that the authorities will do everything in their power to arrest the perpetrators.

Piraeus Bank SA on Thursday approved the repurchase of its preferred shares from the Greek state and approved cancellation of these preferred shares in order to decrease its share capital by 750 million euros.

[Reuters]

A decision by Turkey’s top security body to maintain its presence off the southern coast of Cyprus, where Cypriot authorities already have a license to drill for oil and gas, has heightened fears of tensions climaxing in the region if the Turkish seismic survey vessel Barbaros moves into other areas.

The Labor Ministry’s general secretariat for welfare was expected to disburse the first tranche of compensation to six Attica municipalities which suffered damage during heavy rainstorms on October 24.