Talat Xhaferi

North Macedonia's parliament on Sunday approved a caretaker government with a mandate to organize a general election in May.

The government of the small Balkan country of 1.8 million people will be headed by the country's first-ever ethnic Albanian prime minister, current parliament speaker Talat Xhaferi, 61.

In a historic turn of events, North Macedonia is set to have its first-ever Albanian prime minister. Today, the parliament will convene for an extraordinary meeting to vote on the caretaker government responsible for organizing the upcoming spring elections in the country.

"The threat of 'Bulgarianization' is a fiction of the opposition with the aim of instilling fear among Macedonians", believes the president of our southwestern neighbor, Stevo Pendarovski. He announced this in an interview with the local publication "Trilling".

The Speaker of the Parliament of North Macedonia Talat Xhaferi did not put to the vote the proposal of the coordinator of the parliamentary group of VMRO-DPMNE Nikola Mitseski, who asked at yesterday's parliamentary session to consider the issue of negotiations with Sofia and the negotiating framework with the EU, BGNES reports.

Prime Minister Zoran Zaev on Wednesday unexpectedly asked North Macedonia's parliament to take an immediate vote of confidence in his cabinet after the main opposition right-wing VMRO DPMNE party claimed Zaev's wafer-thin majority in parliament was shaky, and that it could soon muster enough support to topple him.

North Macedonia's president has declared an eight-day state of emergency ahead of an early national election after the country's main political leaders agreed the vote will be held on July 15.

North Macedonia's parliament was set to start a plenary session on the law on the prosecution later on Monday in a shortened procedure aimed at trying to pass the law by Sunday, when parliament is due to dissolve ahead of early general elections on April 12.

"Greater Albania" is a nationalistic, expansionist project that would see internationally recognized borders of Albania expand to include parts of neighboring countries - i.e., Serbia, Greece, North Macedonia, and Montenegro.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will meet with his counterpart of North Macedonia Zoran Zaev in Skopje on Tuesday, April 2, the state-run Athens-Macedonian news agency reports.
Talks between the two leaders will be followed by a meeting of the Hellenic-North Macedonia Cooperation Council. A joint press conference will follow.

President of the Romanian Senate Calin Popescu-Tariceanu welcomed on Wednesday visiting Speaker of the Assembly of the Republic of North Macedonia Talat Xhaferi to emphasise that North Macedonia's joining NATO is a guarantee for its future.