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The Regions This Week
May 12, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 6
Southeast Europe
Bosnian MPs missed their last chance to un-
lock IMF funding by adopting legislative changes proposed by the government. In the best case, this would mean a significant delay of the tranche’s disbursement, but the more likely option seems an end of the much-needed deal with the fund signed in 2016.
Switzerland will restrict the access of Roma- nians and Bulgarians to its labour market for a year. Switzerland has the right to activate a safe- guard clause and limit the number of working permits it issues if the number of migrants ex- ceeds the average of the last three years by 10%.
The Trans Adriatic Pipeline company suspended work in Albania near the village
of Turan, after it discovered the remains of
an ancient settlement. The pipeline will carry Caspian gas from the Greek-Turkish border via Greece and Albania to Italy.
Kosovo’s President Hashim Thaci scheduled early parliamentary elections for June 11. The election will take place after Prime Minister Isa Mustafa’s government lost a no-confidence motion.
Transport Minister Ahmet Arslan told Wikipedia to open a representative office in Turkey and start paying taxes. The site has been unavailable to Turkish users since being blocked by a court on April 29.
Croatia will invest 2.29bn in highways main- tenance by 2020. Croatia’s road network is the Adriatic country’s largest infrastructure asset, carrying 75% of transport.
Slovenia will sell off Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB) gradually after receiving approval from the European Commission. NLB was nationalised in 2013 and Slovenia had committed to sell 75% of the bank by the end of 2017, but will now be able to sell a 50% stake in NLB this year and a further 25% by end-2018.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn condemned any calls for actions that would undermine any citizen’s right to vote in Albania’s June election, despite the opposition boycott. Hahn added that party leaders will
be “held accountable if they try to derail the legitimate aspirations of the Albanian people for a better future”.
Fashion retailer H&M reportedly plans to enter the Bosnian market next year. The Swedish com- pany has already started recruiting.
Albanian journalist and lawyer Kastriot Myftaraj was released the day after he was arrested for urging Albanians to kill the EU’s ambassador in Tirana. Myftaraj is close to the opposition Demo- cratic Party, which had been criticised by ambas- sador Romania Vlahutin for obstructing ongoing judicial reforms.
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic will nominate new ministers for the parliament to vote on after the upcoming local elections. The government currently lacks three ministers after Plenkovic’s HDZ split from its coalition partner Most in April, and it is currently unclear whether Plenkovic still has a majority in the parliament.
A father and son have been sentenced to 30 days in prison for attacking Macedonian MP Ziadin Sela. The attack on the ethnic Albanian MP took place on April 27, when demonstrators stormed the parliament in Skopje.
Bulgaria’s specialised anti-corruption unit charged former foreign minister Daniel Mitov with violating the laws on public finance and public procurement. Mitov is one of several former ministers from the right-wing Reformist Bloc charged since its coalition with ruling GERB ended last year.