Liberal democracies

BELGRADE - Serbian Minister of Culture and Information Ivan Tasovac is staying in his first official visit to Macedonia, during which he participated in the Annual Meeting of the Council of Ministers of Culture of South East Europe, during which the Regional strategy on cooperation in the culture sector in South-East European countries was adopted on Saturday.

VIENNA - Austria's Defence Minister Gerald Klug said after a meeting with his Serbian counterpart Bratislav Gasic on Friday that Serbia was making excellent progress towards EU membership, adding that Austria would continue to support Belgrade.

The talks between Belgrade and Pristina are an important step towards the EU, he told a joint news conference in Vienna.

In May 2014, the number of the trips of Bulgarian residents abroad was 427.5 thousand or by 18.1% above the registered in May 2013, the National Statistical Institute informs.

Bulgaria's Deputy Minister of Agriculture Byurhan Abazov has met with representatives of the Ministry of Forestry of Indonesia, Friday.

BELGRADE - Serbia's First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic will be at the head of a Serbian delegation at the Third Annual Forum of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR), which is taking place in Vienna Thursday and Friday.

Economic Summit: Budget review, consumer debt, EU membership

BELGRADE -- Serbian Finance Minister Lazar Krstić said on Tuesday that he believes a revision of the country's budget will be adopted in August or in mid-September.

This will take place "after the flood damage estimates and assessment of their effect on the state budget are completed."

“We expect that this year’s income from tourism will for the first time exceed the record high of 7.4 billion euro in 2008,” a tourism ministry representative told BIRN on Tuesday.

According to official data, the number of foreign and domestic tourists over the past five months increased by 74,000 on 2013 figures, reaching 2.1 million.

Eighty per cent of former students in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia have found a job by around six months after graduation, according to a new report by the Belgrade-based Centre for Education Policy.

The same amount of recent university-leavers are working in the field in which they graduated, the report says.

The Turkish government is rolling up its sleeves to improve the local digital game market, which has reached over $300 million over the past few years, using a new roadmap.

DUBAI - Serbia's water polo team reached the final of the World League tournament in Dubai on Friday beating Australia 12:5 (2:1, 5:2, 2:0, 3:2).

Defending champion Serbia will next take on world champion Hungary that outlasted Montenegro 10:8.

The final is scheduled for Saturday 16:30 CET.

Photo Tanjug, T. Valic (archive photo)