Left-wing politics

"Building strong opposition challenge in reforms"

BRUSSELS -- Building a strong opposition is one of the main challenges in reforming Serbia , Social Democratic Party (SDS) party leader Boris Tadic said on Friday.

The reason for this is "major asymmetry between the government and the opposition that constitutes a threat to political stability."

BELGRADE - Building a strong opposition is one of the main challenges in reforming Serbia because the major asymmetry between the government and the opposition constitutes a threat to political stability, leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDS) Boris Tadic stated in Brussels on Friday.

The Montenegrin parliament's Committee on International Relations on Thursday failed to agree on the candidacy of the former Mayor of Podgorica, Miomir Mugosa, for the post of ambassador to Slovenia.

Opposition MPs and deputies from the junior ruling party, the Social Democratic Party, SDP, boycotted the session.

An investigating magistrate probing the activities of the leftist guerrilla group Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire on Thursday gave three alleged members of the group additional time, until March 7, to prepare their defense on charges of membership of a terrorist organization.

BELGRADE - The motion to launch the procedure to dismiss Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic cannot be put on the agenda of the parliament's session because it has not been put forward by a minimum of one third of MPs, Parliament Speaker Maja Gojkovic said on Thursday.

Five conversations were published on Sunday at a press conference of the opposition Social Democratic Party, SDSM, involving discussions between top state officials, judges and a pro-government news editor about the appointment of judges as well as court cases and prosecutors' work.

The increasingly authoritarian government of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski in the neighboring former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYRoM) fell back on an “antiquated line of defense” last week in a bid to neutralize a political rival, namely, to indirectly involve Greek secret services.

BELGRADE - A delegation of the Democratic Party (DS) headed by party leader Bojan Pajtic has taken part in a working meeting of the Presidency of the Party of European Socialists (PES), where they expressed their support of a view that pursuing economic policies relying exclusively on savings measures needs to come to an end as soon as possible.

BRUSSELS/BELGRADE- Bojan Patic, president of the Democratic Party (DS), underlined at meeting with European Parliament (EP) Rapporteur for Serbia David McAllister that the EU enlargement must not come to a halt, and urged the opening of the association negotiations with Serbia as soon as possible.

Parliamentary debates scheduled to begin today on the government's contentious new security bill have been postponed at least until next week.