Europol opened on Thursday in Tirana it’s second liaison bureau outside the EU. The first one is in Washington. “This is an important step in establishing a strong partnership and trust between the Member States and the Western Balkans”, Catherine De Bolle, Executive Director of Europol, said at the opening ceremony (pictured).

The Albanian parliament voted on Monday to set up a special commission to investigate and possibly oust President Ilir Meta for his unsuccessful attempt to cancel the municipal elections held on 30 June, news wires reported. According to the Socialist lawmakers, Meta's effort was unconstitutional.

Transport, energy, digital, economy, security and good neighbourly relations were the five key areas  on which the EU confirmed its commitment to apply concrete measures to strengthen cooperation with the Western Balkans at a summit held on 4 and 5 July in Poznan as part of the Berlin Process initiative.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suffered the biggest defeat of his political career on Sunday as his candidate for Istanbul mayor conceded defeat in a repeat election, with voters in Turkey's largest city rallying their support behind opposition Nation Alliance candidate Republican People's Party's (CHP) Ekrem Imamoglu instead.

Millions of Istanbul residents are returning to the polls today to vote in a re-run of a mayoral election that has become a crucial referendum on President Tayyip Erdogan’s policies and a test of Turkey’s ailing democracy. Polling stations across the city opened at 8:00 a.m. local time with 10.56 million people registered to vote in a city which makes up nearly a fifth of Turkey’s 82 million population.

Albania’s president Ilir Meta has canceled upcoming municipal elections, citing the need to reduce political tensions in the country, news wires reported. According to him the actual circumstances do not provide necessary conditions for true, democratic, representative and all-inclusive elections on 30 June.

Serbia ordered its security forces on full alert on Tuesday after police in neighbouring Kosovo mounted an anti-smuggling operation in a northern region of the country populated mainly by Serbs. According to Serbia's state TV Kosovo's special police "burst into" northern Kosovo and made several arrests, but it was only a cover up for actions aimed at intimidating Serbs in Kosovo.

At the invitation of the Republic of North Macedonia authorities, the North Atlantic Council (NAC), chaired by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, will visit Skopje on 2 and 3 June, the Alliance Press Office announced.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that the purchase of S-400 defense systems from Russia was a done deal, adding that Ankara would also jointly produce S-500 defense systems with Moscow.

Anti-government protesters in Albania's capital, Tirana, hurled gasoline grenades and flares at riot police in front of the main government building and national police headquarters Monday evening, despite the US diplomats and EU lawmakers appealed for order and calm. Police officers did not respond to the violence, news wires reported.