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Balkan countries pledge unified effort to combat cigarette smuggling 

Finance ministers and customs officials from Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia, Albania, Romania and Bulgaria agreed to crack down on the smuggling by stepping up controls at border crossings.

At the one-day conference in Kosovo's capital, Pristina, the officials also agreed to harmonize their tax systems. That move is aimed at preventing smugglers from registering their tobacco in areas where taxes are lower before selling them in areas which impose higher taxes.

The meeting was hosted by the U.N. mission to Kosovo, which has made the fight against organized crime a top priority. The countries represented at the meeting are still struggling to impose greater law and order after decades of communism and political corruption, and a decade of ethnic warfare.

Michael Steiner, the head of Kosovo's U.N. mission, stressed that a common effort is needed to halt cigarette smuggling.

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