Gruevski

A court in Hungary has rejected a demand from North Macedonia for former prime minister Nikola Gruevski to be extradited to start serving his two-year prison sentence for illegally soliciting the secret purchase of a 580,000-euro Mercedes in 2012.

Macedonia has in the meantime issued an arrest warrant for the former prime minister, who has been sentenced to two years in prison for abuse of office during the purchase of an armored Mercedes car, while Gruevski is now seeking political asylum in Hungary.

Macedonia's former ruling VMRO DPMNE party has removed several indicted former ministers and senior officials from its executive committee - although with ousted PM Nikola Gruevski still leading the party, the changes appear more cosmetic than substantial, observers say.

A proposal to raise the number of diaspora MPs from three to 20 in the 123-seat parliament has met a cold response from the main opposition Social Democrats.

The Social Democrats said the idea, presented as the parties mull electoral changes ahead of the snap elections set for next April, was "a plan to avoid electoral defeat" on the part of the ruling VMRO DPMNE party.