Alta Bank owner arrested in Serbia as depositors face withdrawal caps
Get European news in your inbox daily
A short daily digest of the whole continent — or just the countries you care about.
Check your email. We've sent a confirmation link — click it to complete your subscription.
The owner of Alta Bank, Davor Macura, has been arrested in Serbia. In Bitola, Skopje, and Tetovo, the result is more practical: bank branches remain closed, ATMs are empty, and the governor of the National Bank has confirmed that daily withdrawals are now capped at 10,000 denars. For residents watching their pensions and savings vanish behind locked doors, the political fallout has been immediate.
The opposition Social Democratic Union and the government have spent the morning trading accusations of spreading panic and misinformation, a familiar rhythm for the country's banking scandals. Within the ruling coalition, tensions are separately rising over the 'Betrayal in Bërvenica' incident, while Maksim Dimitrievski of the ZNAM party has insisted that as long as his party remains in government, jurisprudence will stay exclusively in Macedonian.
The government has also moved against the betting industry, shutting down 104 online gambling websites. In Skopje, a local IT company is facing criticism for allegedly denying an interview to an autistic person on the grounds that their condition would prevent them from defending themselves. Meanwhile, a university professor used a national television debate to suggest that feminism had wrongly encouraged women to reject male supervision.