Balkan developments

Turkey and Greece expect a better yield of olives

The olive oil harvest in Turkey will be a record high one this year. The intense flowering of the olive trees gave hope to the producers already in the spring after the weak last season, which sharply increased the prices of olive oil on the local and foreign markets and led to a significant contraction of consumption.

News of fake olive oil seizures has become a constant topic in the Turkish media over the past months.

Experts quoted by Anadolu Agency expect yields to surpass even the sector's favourable year of 2022, when 420,000 tonnes of olive oil were produced in Turkey, compared to just 240,000 tonnes last season. The olive harvest is expected to be medium to good also in Greece, the ANA-MPA agency reported. The forecast is for 250,000-280,000 tonnes, says the chairman of the National Interbranch Organization Manolis Yanulis. Last year the yield was 130,000 tonnes.

Croats and Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina want to be in the EU, but Serbs don't

71.2% of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina are in favour of the country's entry into the EU. Support is stronger in the Muslim-Croat Federation - 83.8 percent. In the Republika Srpska, only 48.3% would vote "yes" in a referendum on joining the EU, according to a study by the Directorate for European Integration of Bosnia, cited by the HINA agency.

After the 1992-1995 war, the country was divided into two semi-autonomous parts - Republika Srpska, populated mainly by Serbs, and the Muslim-Croat Federation, where Bosnian Muslims and Croats live. About 40% of those asked believe that Bosnia will join the EU in 10 years. Almost 25 percent think the country will never join.

Sarajevo has been given a conditional green light to start membership negotiations at the end of 2023, but does not meet the criteria for state integrity between the communities.

Romania negotiates with the EU permission for a higher budget deficit

Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said that he discussed with the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, an agreement on the country's budget deficit for 7 years, Digi24 TV reported.

"I explained very clearly that we want this because the biggest investments are coming in 2025 and 2026. As we know, the National Recovery and Resilience Plan has a deadline until the end of 2026 in terms of investments," Ciolaku said in Brussels.

Romania's National Recovery and Resilience Plan foresees EU funding for 28.5 billion euros. 14.9 billion are loans and 13.6 billion are grants. For many of the projects in the plan, co-financing from the Romanian state is between 40 and 60%. Romania's budget deficit exceeds the EU's 3% threshold since pre-pandemic 2019, when it was 4.8% of GDP.

After Chancellor Olaf Scholz, President Emmanuel Macron will visit Belgrade

French President Emmanuel Macron will visit Serbia on August 29 and 30. The visit will "reaffirm France's support for the European future" of Belgrade, AFP reported. Following the official visit of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to Paris in April, the new meeting will give the two presidents the opportunity to discuss issues from the economy, healthcare, energy, culture and artificial intelligence, the Elysée Palace announced.

In the spring, Macron said that Serbia's future was in the EU and "nowhere else". He called on Kosovo and Belgrade to fulfill their commitments and "go further" towards normalizing relations. At the beginning of August, France condemned "the frequent unilateral actions of the Kosovo authorities".

Serbia does not recognize the state of Kosovo, with the EU mediating the negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina.

Greece will fight the housing crisis with money expected from the EU

The government in Athens is looking at how to use the nearly 600,000 empty houses and apartments to increase housing supply and stop price growth. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will present a plan for this on September 7 at the opening of the Thessaloniki Fair. The authorities have already announced the second stage of the "My Home" program, which is designed to subsidize young households. The idea is that the EU Recovery and Resilience Fund will provide €1.7 billion for this.

Athens also wants to raise the age limit for aid recipients to 50 from the current 40. The government considers the issue urgent because property prices make buying and renting a home unaffordable.

The authorities also believe that the empty properties are a field for tax evasion, writes Kathimerini.

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