Progressive Party

The governments of Macedonia and Serbia held a joint session in Skopje on Monday that ended with two countries signing seven cooperation agreements.

A BIRN source in the Serbian government has revealed that Socialists and Progressives are holding emergency talks on the future of their coalition.

The session comes after the dominant Progressive Party said it had not received sufficient support from its Socialist Party partners led by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic.

The Socialists, who are part of the Serbian government led by Aleksandar Vucic's Progressive Party, re-elected Dacic by acclamation at their party congress on Sunday in Belgrade.

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Two MPs from Serbia's ruling Progressive Party are in hot water for monitoring separatist elections in eastern Ukraine.

Following opposition accusations about their actions in parliament, Progressive Party MP Zoran Babic said the two MPs went to the separatist headquarters of Donetsk as citizens and not as representatives of the Serbian parliament.

Radomir Nikolic, son of President Tomislav Nikolic and a member of the ruling Progressive Party's executive board is likely to become mayor of Kragujevac, the main city of central Serbia, within the next two weeks.

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Sasa Vukasinovic, a deputy for the Progressive Party in the local assembly of Sabac, in western Serbia, has embarrassed the ruling party by saying he had now left after it failed to offer his son a job.

Vukasinovic, who was formerly a member of another political party, the United Regions of Serbia, URS, switched to the Progressives after the party took power in 2012.

Nebojsa Ciric is likely to become Serbia's new Economy Minister, Balkan Insight has learned from a source in the ruling Progressive Party.

Short bio

Born in 1974 in the eastern town of Bor, he moved to Belgrade to go to mathematical high school. In 1996, he finished studies at the London School of Economics, LSE.

From January 2016, people in Serbia will be obliged to pay a tax to fund the public service broadcasters RTS and RTV, according to new legislation approved by the government on Sunday.

President Tomislav Nikolic on Friday called for changes in the police, saying they were needed to support the fight against crime in the country.

"I call on the government to appoint honest crime fighters and ensure that those responsible are doing the job they are entrusted with," Nikolic said.

Serbia's ruling Progressive Party spent 4.5 million euro on TV campaign ahead of general elections and the local elections in Belgrade held on March 16.

This is according to the latest Transparency Serbia report on the election campaign in the country.