The next round of Kosovo talks on June 23 "will be crucial for normalization of relations and opening of (EU) negotiating chapters for Serbia this year."

This is what European Parliament Rapporteur for Serbia David McAllister said in Belgrade on Monday.

"In order to open the first chapter this year both sides will have to demonstrate progress and the next round of dialogue in Brussels will be crucial for normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina," he said at the Serbian Economic Summit, according to a Beta agency report.

Construction of the highway Nis-Pristina-Durres is important for Serbia because it will connect Corridor 10 with the Albanian ports of Durres and Vlora which should be counted on in the future, stated State Secretary in the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure.

The EU is open to new members and Serbia is on the right path to becoming one, David McAllister, European Parliament standing rapporteur on Serbia, said on Monday, and added that the country has made huge progress over the past several years.

Opening the 15th Economic Summit of the Republic of Serbia at Belgrade's Metropol Palace Hotel, McAllister stated his desire that the first chapters in EU accession talks would be opened this year.

The fact that we have not opened even the first negotiation chapter with Serbia lends no credibility to the EU, says Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak.

We owe that not only to Serbia, but to ourselves as well, for the sake of the authenticity of the European integration process - the commissioner for enlargement talks, Johannes Hahn, also agrees with this, Lajcak was quoted as saying in Monday's issue of Vecernje Novosti ahead of a meeting of European leaders, to be held in Brussels late this month.

In this edition of The Interview, Fair Observer talks to EU Special Representative in Kosovo Samuel Zbogar.

On February 17, 2008, Kosovo declared independence. The International Court of Justice subsequently stated that the declaration did not violate international law.

It can be expected that the U.S. will suggest to Germany and other EU members to let up, and give Serbia a chance to open chapters in membership negotiations.

This is according to Faculty of of Political Sciences professor Ivo Viskovic, who added that the visit of Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic to Washington is "very important."

"It's difficult to say that this would mean pressure on Berlin, Berlin would never accept that, but an influence on Berlin, yes," he told the Serbian state broadcaster RTS, and added:

Kosovo's Interior Ministry has announced that around 7,500 migrants, most of whom were part of a wave of illegal migration into the EU from Kosovo in early 2015, have been returned from Germany, Austria, Sweden, Belgium and France.

"We have had 7,500 immigrants returned to Kosovo, and most of them have been in these countries since January. We can see a clear spike in the numbers. In these four months, more Kosovars were returned than in all of 2014 when we had a total of 4,600," said Valon Krasniqi, from the the Department for Repatriation at the Interior Ministry.

Kosovo’s European Integration Minister Bekim Collaku, during the preparatory meeting of the National Committee for Investment said that all projects are for infrastructure and that the EU has already donated € 1 billion for these investments.  This committee met in order to discuss key infrastructure investments and co-financing of projects by the European Union.

The European Union officials called on Kosovo authorities not to delay the debate and vote in the Assembly for the establishment of the special court. The European Union Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Maja Kocijancic, told the news site that Kosovo institutions have to set the date for the Assembly session that would address the special court. "It is prerogative of the authorities of Kosovo to appoint the Assembly session and to establish the special court.

The small Balkan country of Macedonia is turning into an unexpected stage for tension between Moscow and the West.

A year and a half after antigovernment protests broke out in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, similar scenes are playing out on the streets of Skopje, Macedonia: Tens of thousands of protesters have swarmed the city’s center in recent weeks, angered over excerpts from illegal wiretaps that activists say expose corruption and a gross abuse of power in Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski’s government.