Social Democratic Union of Macedonia

Gjorge Ivanov sent this message to members of the Assembly in Skopje at the end of his one-hour speech on Friday.

He quoted the first president of Macedonia, Kiro Gligorov, "who said that the issue of name and identity is older than any constitution, any government, any party, and even the the state, and that no single person, nor any generation, has no right to trade with it."

Former Macedonian secret police chief Vladimir Atanasovski was arrested on Tuesday and placed in 30 days' detention on the request of the State Prosecution, which said there was a risk be might flee the country after his name was mentioned in a trial for the storming of the parliament building in 2017.

By the order of the Criminal Court in Skopje, Macedonian police on Monday confirmed that they had issued an arrest warrant for former prime minister Nikola Gruevski who is to serve his two-year jail sentence.

This was issued after the Appeal Court last Friday rejected the former prime minister's appeal for a postponement of his sentence.

The Criminal Court in Skopje confirmed on Friday that it has handed a 'referral act' to ex-premier Nikola Gruevski, saying he should start serving his jail sentence at the prison in Shuto Orizari, near Skopje, on November 8 at the latest.

The vice-president of Macedonia's main ruling Social Democratic Party, Petre Shilegov, on Wednesday confirmed that his parliamentary group has begun talks with its opposition rivals in parliament to persuade them to vote for the historic "name" agreement with Greece.

Macedonian PM Zoran Zaev apologised in a Facebook post on Friday about his controversial remark about the 1903 Ilinden rebellion that caused uproar among Bulgarian politicians on all sides.

After marathon discussions between the heads of all of Macedonia's parliamentary parties on Wednesday ended without agreement, talks were due to resume in Skopje on Thursday between the leaders of the four largest parties alone.

A three-hour televised duel between Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev and opposition leader Hristijan Mickovski, the first such event in 16 years, attracted intense attention from viewers in the country and drew heat on social networks.

A feud between two opposing camps inside the small ethnic Albanian BESA party has created another headache for the Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, who would like to see all the party's five MPs in his government, boosting its wafer-thin majority.

BSP President Kornelia Ninova will meet Macedonian Prime Minister and SDSM leader Zoran Zaev in Skopje on March 23rd. This was announced by the press center of the Bulgarian Socialist Party.