Skopje

While Bulgaria is making efforts to improve relations with North Macedonia, the Russian embassy in Skopje issued a message that could only be seen as a provocation in Sofia.

24 May is celebrated in several countries, including Bulgaria, Russia and North Macedonia, as the day of the Saint Brothers Cyril and Methodius and of the Cyrillic script.

On Monday in Brussels, President Rumen Radev met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa, said President Radev's Press Office.

While EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell "practically corrected Varhelyi," said Malinka Ristovska of the European Policy Institute, EPI, a Skopje-based think tank, he offered nothing new on how the bloc proposed to get around Bulgaria's continuing veto threat.

A resurrected project to build high-rise buildings on a prominent site in the centre of North Macedonia's capital Skopje has sparked petitions and criticism of the authorities for their inaction in preventing it.

In an open letter to Prime Minister Zoran Zaev sent on Wednesday, 29 civic organisations, including prominent architects, urged him to stop the project.

Surprise

Bulgaria's April 4 Parliamentary election was always going to produce an interesting result, given the strong polling of several populist or anti-corruption groupings taking part. Yet the final outcome was a surprise to most observers and many of the participants.

Sofia - Skopje relations have entered a new crisis following the publication last week of a report by the International Institute for the Middle East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES), a Slovenian think tank.

North Macedonia has defended its decision to stop a shipment of 920 copies of a Bulgarian book intended for a Bulgarian cultural centre in Skopje, after Bulgaria on Sunday sent a protest note. The books were not allowed across the Deve Bair border crossing between the two countries at the weekend.

North Macedonian law enforcement has placed the businessman Orce Kamcev in 30 days' detention in Shutka prison near Skopje, on the request of the Organised Crime Prosecution, which said there was a risk he might flee the country.

The prosecution on Sunday said it requested his detention after receiving "info from the National Security Agency that he might be preparing an escape".

Vasil Garvanliev from Strumica with the song "Here I stand" will represent Northern Macedonia at this year's Eurovision edition in Rotterdam.

The Bulgarian tricolor can be seen in the video of the artist, but nowhere in the video becomes clear  that it is a singer from Northern Macedonia, according to the Skopje-based electronic edition MakPress writes.

Channel BNT4 of the Bulgarian National Television (BNT) is now available in North Macedonia.

Yesterday, the special representative of the country in the history dispute with Bulgaria Vlado Buchkovski was the first to announce this.