South Slavs

Offensive and vulgar chants against the European Union and Bulgaria were heard last night during the second protest in front of the Macedonian government building against the French proposal to start negotiations for the Republic of North Macedonia for EU membership.

Just two days after the ousting of PM Kiril Petkov in a no-confidence vote, Bulgarian legislators on Friday adopted a declaration which would allow their government to potentially lift its veto on starting EU membership talks for neighbouring North Macedonia.

The Assembly of Bulgaria discussed today the decision accepting the proposal of the French Presidency of the EU regarding the negotiating framework for North Macedonia and Albania.

Slavi Trifonov's actions are against the background of a tangible public reluctance for new sharp political movements - the public background is not in favor of new elections and even government changes. The new French proposal for North Macedonia came amid a continuing firm belief that Skopje has not done enough to remove Bulgaria's "block".

For more than 50 percent of Bulgarians, media reports about the war in Ukraine are rather unreliable, with one in three saying they encounter fake news every day or almost every day, according to a Gallup International Balkan study.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov and the European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi gave a press conference after their meeting in the Council of Ministers, at which the EU membership of North Macedonia was discussed.

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev had a telephone conversation with US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried, the press office of the head of state announced.

Serbia's Academy of Sciences and Arts, SANU, has dismissed as an "inflammatory political pamphlet" a paper drafted by its Croatian counterpart setting out the demands it says Zagreb should make as part of the negotiation process on the European Union accession of Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"There are individuals and marginalized groups, there are even political parties in the country that are funded by third countries that do not want to see North Macedonia in the EU and are working against a possible agreement between Bulgaria and North Macedonia," said the Prime Minister of North Macedonia Dimitar Kovachevski in an interview for the show "360 degrees", quoted by BTA.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is facing its most serious crisis since the end of the armed conflict in 1995. Bosnian Croat parties are threatening to boycott the country's institutions due to the Bosniak parties' refusal to implement a 2016 Constitutional Court ruling.