Prime Ministers of Croatia

While visiting fire-affected areas near the Croatian coastal city of Split on Tuesday, Croatian Defence Minister and Vice Prime Minister Damir Krsticevic offered his resignation over the military's allegedly slow reaction to the blazes on the coast, Jutarnji list newspaper reported.

Reporting about the Western Balkans Summit in Trieste, German newspaper Die Welt writes that "the EU wants to create a new mini-Yugoslavia in the Balkans."

Croatian daily Vecernji list on Thursday will launch what it calls "the most anticipated book of the decade", written by the former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, who led the country for several years in the 2000s and was subsequently indicted for alleged corruption.

Rows inside Croatia's strongest opposition party, the Social Democratic Party, SDP, have continued after the party removed two prominent MPs from their positions as deputy chair of parliament and as president of the parliamentary committee for labour, pension system and social partnership.

Tuesday's opening of two new chapters in the EU accession talks will be a message that Serbia is a stable country that is carrying out reforms in various areas.

Tanjug has quoted Serbia's Minister without Portfolio in charge of EU integration Jadranka Joksimovic as saying this.

With the centre-right Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, losing potential partners for forming a new governing majority in the Croatian parliament, new general elections seem to be a realistic scenario in the coming months, an analyst told BIRN.

The Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, has remained in power after proving it still has a new majority in parliament and naming one of its MPs as the new chair of parliament, thus avoiding snap elections in June.

On Friday, it proved that it still had majority support by voting in HDZ MP Gordan Jandrokovic as the new chair of parliament.

Ahead of talks between President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic and leaders of Croatia's parliamentary parties and MPs on Friday, a resolution to the political crisis in the country is not in sight.

The head of MOST, Bozo Petrov, has resigned from his position as chair of Croatia's parliament after an opposition-backed move to unseat Finance Minister Zdravko Maric narrowly failed on Thursday.

Maric remained in his post after the failure of a no-confidence vote in parliament, when the opposition failed to gather the necessary 76 votes.

After Croatia's Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic axed three ministers from the junior government party, the Bridge of Independent Lists, MOST, Croatia appear set for political instability and even new elections, possibly in September, a leading politica. analyst told BIRN.