The main ruling VMRO DPMNE party of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski is holding on to public support, a poll by the Skopje-based Institute for Political Research, IPIS, suggests.Asked which party they would vote for, were an election held next week, 22.5 per cent of the respondents said they would vote …

Romania’s Foreign Minister opens his country’s consulate in ErbilThe Romanian Foreign Minister, Titus Corlăţean has opened his country’s consulate in Erbil, the capital city of Kurdistan region, in the presence of Erbil’s Governor, Nawzad Hadi and the President of the Presidium of the Kurdistan region, Fouad Hussein.

The small right wing TMRO party, part of the Macedonian government, has retreated from its idea of taxing unmarried people as a way of boosting birth rate.In a written statement issued on Monday the head of TMRO, Vanco Sehtanski, withdrew the proposal and apologised to “all concerned”. “The idea for …

Kosovo’s PM Hashim Thaci has ruled out any possibility of autonomy for the Serb-run northern Kosovo.The Prime Minister of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, said that the autonomy for Northern Kosovo was “just an old dream of Serbia’s that will never come true”. “The idea that has been presented in the Serbian …

The leftist coalition governing Romania is firmly on course to win December’s parliamentary elections.Romanian parties have officially announced their candidates for the general elections scheduled for December 9. Some 4,000 people – including many businessmen, journalists and artists – will run for the 452 seats in Romania’s bicameral parliament.

Serbia’s new government has not lived up to its election rhetoric on the economy, corruption, education and health, experts said on Friday at the release of a joint BIRN-NALED report.The National Alliance for Local Economy Development, NALED, and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, presented a mixed picture of the …

While the world looks West next week, don’t lose sight of a gathering drama in the East. On the very day that the US will discover if it has a new or a re-elected President, the Greek Parliament will be faced with a vote that could – finally – decide …

Foreign diplomats and the president of Bosnia’s highest judicial authority expressed their concern over the recent SDP-SNSD agreement which includes election of prosecutors.The president of the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council, HJPC, Milorad Novkovic, and representatives of the international community criticised the agreement between the leaders of the Bosnian Serb …

One of the main reasons why the role of the Yugoslav People’s Army, JNA, in the breakup of Yugoslavia remains unclear after nearly 20 years since the wars is that archives of the army are still kept secret, experts say.Following the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the federal army, the JNA, was …

Foreign Minister Zlatko Lagumdzija was hospitalised on Thursday after falling ill during a television show, apparently suffering from exhaustion.Lagumdzija suddenly broke off the interview in a Sarajevo TV studio on Thursday night, requesting a glass of water before standing up and disappearing from the view of the camera. The TV …