Balkans

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.

Bosnia’s constitution allows only members of its three main ethnic communities, Muslims, Croats and Serbs, to run for parliament or the tripartite presidency.

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 …

Serbia’s former president has abandoned his ambitions to remain at the helm of the Democratic Party, and will cede the post to Belgrade Mayor Dragan Djilas.Boris Tadic, leader of the opposition Democrats, announced on Sunday after a session of the party’s main board that he would not run for office …

After the Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS, said it agreed to the terms set by the ethnic minority parties, a new government is expected to be formed soon.Montenegro’s ruling party has settled terms with the country’s ethnic minority parties, paving the way to the formation of a majority government. The …

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 …