The European Commission will "in a matter of weeks" propose to lift visa restrictions on Serb citizens with a view to adopting the new provisions in 2010, the head of the EU delegation in Belgrade has told journalists. The announcement came as Brussels multiplies its Serbian initiatives.

Serbia's efforts to advance along the path to EU accession are currently being blocked by the Netherlands, which wants the country to "fully cooperate" with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The Hague wants war criminal Ratko Mladic to be captured and brought to justice beofre moving on with EU accession talks.

A study has found that Turkish firms have grown more reluctant to lay off workers due to economic crises but they are also not eager to increase the wages of white-collar workers.

A consulting company, Prometheus, conducted a study on mid-2009 employment and wages between May 1 and June 15, 2009 by surveying 300 firms operating in İstanbul, İzmit, Tekirdağ, İzmir, Manisa, Ankara, Antalya, Denizli, Gaziantep, Bursa, Bolu, Eskişehir, Konya, Malatya and Adana. The study focused on white-collar workers employed by foreign capital, foreign and domestic capital and domestic capital companies. Only 10 percent of the companies that participated in the survey said they may dismiss workers in the second half of this year due to concerns over the worsening conditions of the global crisis.

The European Commission has opened the excessive deficit procedure against ten EU member states including Romania, who exceeded the three per cent admissible threshold in 2008 to 5.4 per cent.

The excessive deficit was the result of bigger expenditures than those planned, mainly with public sector wages as well as social transfers. Moreover, the Commission has also acknowledged a poorer public revenue collection rate in the last two months of 2008 in the context of the economic crisis, which deepened the public deficit even further. The European Commission had originally announced a flexibility of the Growth and Stability Pact stipulating the three per cent budget deficit limit, in November 2008, because of the economic crisis but only applicable in 2009.