Socialist International

BELGRADE - The Serbian parliament concluded late Thursday the debate in principle on the new bill on ministries and amendments to the law on government, which are a prerequisite for electing the new government.

The parliament will be in recess on Friday, with the amended bills to be discussed and adopted on Saturday, April 26.

Macedonia's opposition Social Democratic Party, the SDSM, has filed charges against Prime Minister Gruevski on three accounts of taking bribes and tax evasion.

“By law, the minimum penalty for tax evasion alone is a minimum of four years in jail,” the head of the SDSM, Zoran Zaev, told a press conference.

BELGRADE - The next mayor of Belgrade will not be elected during the constitutive meeting of the city assembly on Wednesday, but it will be revealed which parties are going to form the new government in the city, secretary of the city's interim authority Goran Vesic has said.

Nebojsa Stefanovic, vice-president of Serbian Progressive Party, which took a majority at the Belgrade local elections last month as well as winning nationwide polls, said that the new mayor should be elected as soon as city’s new parliament holds its first session.

BELGRADE - Democratic Party (DS) leader Dragan Djilas told Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic on Thursday that the Democrats cannot take part in a government such as is about to be formed by the prime minister in waiting, Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) leader Aleksandar Vucic, adding that nobody has even invited them to join.

Head of DS foreign policy board steps down over PACE vote

BELGRADE -- Dušan Spasojević, chairman of the DS Foreign Policy Committee and the party's international secretary, has confirmed that he resigned from all functions.

By Alexis Papachelas

Talk of what the markets are up to is back in our lives and there are those who want people to believe that they have an infallible instinct when it comes to predicting how the markets will react at any given time.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of Turkey's main opposition party CHP, was assaulted in Parliament on Tuesday.

An assailant entering the Parliament building as a visitor kicked and punched Kilicdarogluu several times, making him fall on the floor and breaking his glasses, Hurriyet Daily News reported.

If the elections for European Parliament were today, four Bulgarian parties would pass the 5.9% threshold, shows a survey of the Mediana agency. 

Nikolay Barekov, a former journalist and TV host, announced he would lead the EU Elections list of a coalition forged by his Bulgaria without Censorship (BWC) party.

The leaders of nationalist VMRO-BND, Agrarian People's Union and Gergiovden Movement, the other three parties within the coalition, will rank immediately after him in the list, Dnevnik.bg has reported.