Austria

BELGRADE - Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz on Wednesday congratulated Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Ivica Dacic, who is also foreign minister, on a very positive European Commission progress report on Serbia, expressing confidence that Serbia will open one or two negotiation chapters by the end of the year.

BELGRADE - Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic on Tuesday thanked Austria for the wholehearted assistance it has offered to Serbia in the wake of the catastrophic floods and for its support to the country on the European path.

SHANGAI - World number one Novak Djokovic advanced to the third round of the Shangai Masters, after beating Austria's Dominic Thiem 6-3, 6-4 on Wednesday.

Defending champion Djokovic broke Thiem's serve early in both sets and brought his first ever meeting with Austria's new tennis hope to a successful close without much effort.

Prime minister satisfied with new EC report

BELGRADE -- Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić said on Wednesday the European Commission report on Serbia's progress is "better than all the other reports in the region."

BELGRADE- Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz congratulated Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic on Wednesday over the report of the European Commission (EC) on Serbia's progress which, as he said, has a positive score primarily in the implementation of reforms in the economy sector.

Bulgarian tennis player Tsvetana Pironkova defeated Austrian Lisa-Maria Moser with 6: 2, 6: 3 in a match of the first round of the tennis tournament in Linz, with a prize pool of USD 250,000.

As expected, Pironkova outplayed Moser, which is currently number 395 in the world rankings, Bulgaria's Nova TV reports.

A senior EU source said the European Commission Progress Reports for 2014 on the Western Balkans, due out on Wednesday, would mainly highlight failings in the fields of the rule of law, corruption, fundamental rights such as freedom of expression as well as threats to the independence of the media.

Abid Podbicanin, Sead Plojovic, Tefik Mujovic and Izudin Crnovršanin, all from Novi Pazar, and Ferat Kasumovic, from Belgrade, are accused of recruiting men to fight for the Sunni terrorist organisation Islamic State, or Isis.

VIENNA - As early as this year, Belgrade could open one or two chapters in its EU accession talks, says Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz.

Eurostat has published statistics on the share of non-nationals of the total population of EU cities.

According to Eurostat data, the share of non-national population in Sofia stands at 1% of the total population.