(SKOPJE) - Macedonia's parliament approved Saturday a new government presented by Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, who has promised to speed up reforms needed for the Balkan country to join the European Union.

All of the 78 lawmakers present in the 120-member assembly late Saturday voted in favour of the new government.

Gruevski's conservative VMRO-DPMNE party won an absolute parliamentary majority in the June 1 polls, but has formed a coalition government with the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI).

The DUI is one of two main parties representing Macedonia's ethnic Albanians, a minority comprising about one quarter of its two million population.

Members of the other Albanian party, the Democratic Party for Albanians (DPA), and the opposition Social Democratic Union were not present during Saturday's vote.

The Social Democratic Union has been boycotting parliament over the arrest of one of its vice-presidents, Zoran Zaev, the mayor of the southeastern town of Strumica, over alleged links to organised crime.

And the DPA has also refused to take part in parliamentary operations because it questions the results of the elections in regions of Macedonia that have an Albanian majority.

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