Macedonia

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SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) June 23, 2020 — Police in North Macedonia say 64 Bangladeshi migrants have been found in a truck on a highway near the country’s border with Greece.

North Macedonia: 64 Bangladeshi migrants found in truck

© Cristian Mihai Vela North Macedonian flag

The driver evaded arrest during the inspection late Monday near Strumica in the country’s southeast. In a statement Tuesday, police gave no other details about the migrants.

The migrants were detained and transferred to a holding site in border town of Gevgelija, pending deportation to Greece.

The so-called Balkan migration route, mostly running through former Yugoslav republics, has been closed since 2015 and Greek border with North Macedonia was closed earlier this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But police say trafficking networks remain active in the border area.

 

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North Macedonia voted on Wednesday in a parliamentary election that could decide the pace of its bid for EU membership, with nationalists vying to unseat the governing Social Democrats who changed the country’s name to join Western institutions.

Leader who changed North Macedonia's name fights to keep power in vote

July 14, 2020 - The vote was originally scheduled for April but postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak. Voters arrived at the polling stations wearing mandatory masks.

Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, in office since 2017, put the country on the path towards EU membership by agreeing to add “North” to its name.

That resolved a decades-old stand-off with Greece, which had viewed the name Macedonia as a claim on its province of the same name, and had blocked its neighbour’s entry into both the EU and NATO. The newly renamed North Macedonia joined NATO this year.

The opposition VMRO-DPMNE of Hristijan Mickoski opposed the name change, and also accuses Zaev’s Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) of corruption and cronyism, which they deny.

Opinion polls have indicated a tight race, with one showing a narrow lead for the SDSM and another a narrow lead for the VMRO-DPMNE. Both parties have polled below 25%, meaning the winning side is almost certain to require an alliance with other groups to form a majority.

“I believe ... we have succeeded in ... convincing the people that the coalition led by SDSM is the one that will get most support,” Zaev said after voting.

An SDSM victory would be seen as lending momentum to Skopje’s membership talks with the EU.

Skopje political analyst Petar Arsovski said if VMRO-DPMNE were to win, it would not abandon the deal with Greece but might try to hold up implementing some aspects, such as renaming the currency and changing uniform symbols, risking new obstacles to the EU bid.