North Macedonia

With early elections due in spring and the country's EU perspectives far from secure, North Macedonia risks a year of petty political and ethnic squabbles - and even a relapse into full-blown crisis.

The European Union's top enlargement official on Wednesday held out new hope that the block will start accession talks within months with North Macedonia and Albania, whose bids were frustrated last year.

The former speaker of parliament in North Macedonia, Trajko Veljanoski, faces trial together with former transport minister Mile Janakieski, former education minister Spiro Risteski and former secret police chief Vladimir Atanasovski, after the Skopje Criminal Court on Thursday said it had accepted the charges pressed against them.

After his caretaker cabinet was approved on Friday, Oliver Spasovski - who has taken over as acting Prime Minister of North Macedonia - says he is up to "meeting citizens' expectations" and ensuring the April 12 early general elections pass off without a major hitch.

North Macedonia's parliament on Friday approved a new caretaker government under the country's former interior minister, after Zoran Zaev resigned as prime minister ahead of previously agreed early elections on April 12.

Under a deal made by major political parties, the caretaker government will be headed by Oliver Spasovski, who served in Zaev's center-left administration.

The prime minister of North Macedonia submitted his resignation Friday, paving the way for a new caretaker Cabinet to be named in order to organize a snap election.

"The government has been working since 8.30 a.m., I have signed my resignation, in accordance with the agreement (for the elections) and the Law on Government. I believe that it will reach the Parliament very soon, which can then start the procedure for electing a transitional government", Zaev said.

The formation of North Macedonia's caretaker government, tasked with ensuring democratic early general elections on April 12, has encountered new complications after the opposition VMRO DPMNE party proposed an army lieutenant-colonel, Dragan Kovacki, as caretaker interior minister.

One of them is the expected verdict in the high-profile case codenamed 'Monster', which deals with the gruesome killing of five ethnic Macedonians in 2012 during Orthodox Easter near Skopje, in which ethnic Albanians are on trial.

"I believe we will resolve the historical issues with Bulgaria." Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said this in an extensive interview with Deutsche Welle, according to BGNES, analyzing his governance from June 2017 to the present.