The parliamentary elections and the second round of the presidential election will be held on 8 May, it was decided at the leaders’ meeting on Monday. There was no deal on constitutional changes, while the Electoral Code changes will concern only OSCE/ODIHR recommendations. As PM and SDSM leader Dimitar Kovacevski said, the previous day, SDSM’s Executive Board had held a ...

“The OSCE has been saved,” Chairperson-in-Office and Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani said at the closing press-conference of the Ministerial, on Friday. The participating States had previously adopted, by consensus, decisions for Malta to be the holder of Chairpersonship-in-Office next year, for the terms of OSCE Secretary General Helga Maria Schmid, Representative on Freedom of the Media Teresa Ribeiro, and High ...

OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani responded on Friday to comments made by his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, saying it was Russia that caused problems in the region. As he added, the US and the EU are the only ones that are actively committed to and participate in the region’s democratisation and development, as well as with regards to ...

Speaking at a press-conference on Friday on the sidelines of the OSCE Ministerial, the US Permanent Representative to the Organisation, Michael Carpenter, said Russia remained isolated within the OSCE due to its aggression against Ukraine. Asked to comment on Lavrov’s stand that the West’s diplomats are cowards, the US Permanent Representative said: “Nobody wants to sit at the table with ...

PM Dimitar Kovacevski said on Saturday that he expected a constructive leaders’ meeting on Monday, without blackmails, which would see a discussion on the elections date, but also a deal on the Electoral Code changes. In his view, there is currently no consensus for abolition of the caretaker cabinet concept. As he added, that shouldn’t be an obstacle because the ...

Ex-Government Secretary-General Muhamed Zekiri was on Friday sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for abuse of official position. Also, he was ordered to repay the financial damage to the budget of around 1 million euros, caused, according to the first-instance verdict, as a result of the two consulting deals he signed instead of organising a public procurement process. Zekiri will ...

The 14-year-old missing girl from Skopje, Vanja Gjorcevska, was found dead today in the surrounding area of Skopje, police said on Sunday night. Police officers from Veles found also found the dead body of a 74-year-old from the city, who had been reported missing on 24 November, three days before Gjorcevska. Regarding the two cases, there are five suspects. A ...

At the opening of the OSCE Ministerial Council on Thursday, PM Dimitar Kovacevski stated that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s presence didn’t represent a victory for Russian diplomacy. “This absolutely isn’t any diplomatic victory by Russia. This is a diplomatic victory by the OSCE, considering the OSCE functioning had been called into question. With this, the OSCE will continue to ...

Part of ministers attending the OSCE Ministerial Council boycotted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s speech on Thursday, that is, they left the hall when it started. Lavrov started his speech by levelling accusations at EU and NATO members, stating that they had destroyed the OSCE’s military-political dimension. According to Lavrov, the Organisation is in a bad situation and was destroyed ...

The Russian Embassy in Skopje posted yesterday on its official Facebook page a photo of meeting of Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, with Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Bujar Osmani, and Malta’s Foreign Minister, Ian Borg, who, as the Embassy said, is Osmani’s successor. As the Russian Foreign Ministry said, there was a discussion on the OSCE situation, while the ...