Politics by country

Parliament in North Macedonia approved a reshuffle of five ministers on Thursday night, which came after the ruling coalition, headed by Zoran Zaev's Social Democrats, received a wake-up call in recent presidential elections. In the vote, 65 of 120 MPs backed the reshuffle with 25 opposition MPs voting against.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (c back), US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt (r back), French Ambassador Christophe Chantepy (l back), Hellenic Hydrocarbon Resources Management President Yannis Bassias (l front), Hellenic Petroleum General Manager George Alexopoulos (2nd l front), Energy Minister Giorgos Stathakis (3rd l front), Total Group's Vice President for the Caspian & Southern Europe B

Alexis Tsipras "would have been a very happy prime minister" if he'd been elected to govern Greece a decade earlier, instead of finding "empty coffers" in 2015, he told Open TV on Thursday, lashing out at his predecessors in the wake of comments by former conservative premier Costas Karamanlis the previous day.

The Constitutional Court in Kosovo on Thursday has thrown the future of the national negotiating team with Serbia into question after ruling that its mandate and competences of were unconstitutional.

,,For Bulgaria, the partnership with the European Anti-Fraud Office is of utmost importance'', Prime Minister Boyko Borissov noted during the meeting with the Director General of OLAF, Ville Itala, at the Council of Ministers, the press service of the Cabinet announced.

I think to run for mayor of Sofia. It will be a show. I've heard that Maya Manolova and Slavi Trifonov will participate. I'll do a good campaign. People in Lyulin recognize me very well because of the gas stations, revealed Veselin Mareshki.

President Ilir Meta (left) and Prime Minister Edi Rama during a ceremony of remembrance for WWII heroes on May 5 2019. Photo: LSA

After the failure of the meeting requested by the President, Meta said he was setting a new date for the local elections, due on June 30.

A court in Hungary has rejected a demand from North Macedonia for former prime minister Nikola Gruevski to be extradited to start serving his two-year prison sentence for illegally soliciting the secret purchase of a 580,000-euro Mercedes in 2012.

The number of trips of Bulgarian citizens abroad in May 2019 was 762.1 thousand, or 4.6% above those registered in May 2018, NSI reported, quoted by BNT.

Venezuela's socialist government said on June 26 it had derailed a coup bid, claiming the United States, Colombia and Chile colluded in a military plot to assassinate President Nicolas Maduro and install a general and former defense minister in his place.