Skopje

Judicial Woes

A courtroom in Skopje. Photo: BIRN

Seven years ago, when the ruling SDSM came to power in North Macedonia, one of its pledges for cleaning up corruption and strengthening the rule of law was to implement a judicial vetting process. The aim of this would have been to root out corrupt or inefficient judges.

North Macedonian police said they arrested a person who held a handgun and fired shots in the air at Thursday night's protest against the acceptance of a French proposal aimed at unclogging North Macedonia's stalled EU accession talks.

For the fifth night in a row, a protest organized by the VMRO-DPMNE of Hristijan Mickoski and the pro-Russian Left of Dimitar Apasiev took place in Skopje against the French proposal to start negotiations for membership of North Macedonia in the EU, reported BGNES.

The Bulgarian airline GullivAir has permanently suspended regular flights to Skopje (North Macedonia), Tirana (Albania) and Burgas (Bulgaria).

Pride Parades attract hate speech in Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia

Pride parades in Sarajevo and Skopje on June 25 prompted numerous digital rights violations which followed the common pattern of online hate speech against the LGBT+ community.

Another evening of protests in Skopje against the French proposal to start negotiations for the Republic of North Macedonia for membership in the European Union. Tensions rose after about 30 hooded demonstrators began throwing bombs and hard objects at the parliament building and police officers. 47 police officers were injured and 11 protesters were detained.

The draft proposal France sent to North Macedonia last week to unclog the country's EU accession talks, by removing the Bulgarian blockade over history and identity issues, is to be sent to the parliament, a meeting between the partners in the ruling Social Democrat-led coalition on Sunday decided.

"The Macedonian language issue has been resolved and all lies related to it must be dismantled". This was said at a press conference in Skopje by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the RNM Bujar Osmani.

The framework that needs to be signed with the European Union will state that North Macedonia will translate the legislation into the Macedonian language.

"Today, we will submit a report to the prosecutor's office about Petkov's abuse of office", the leader of "Vazrazhdane," Kostadin Kostadinov said in the National Assembly.

"Obviously, the war in Ukraine has sunk into the tracks and will be a long event. The question is what can be done to prevent such tensions from recurring."

This was said to BNR by Ivailo Kalfin, former Deputy Prime Minister, former Foreign and Social Minister and former MEP. He is currently the Executive Director of Eurofound.