Breakthrough to end Macedonian political deadlock

By bne IntelliNews July 15, 2015

bne IntelliNews -

 
There appears to be light at the end of the tunnel of Macedonia's protracted political crisis after key agreements were reached at EU-mediated discussions on July 14, following over five months of heated exchanges and protests.
 
The leaders of the country's four largest political parties reached a deal for the opposition to return to parliament -  more than a year after they began a boycott claiming that elections last April were rigged - as well for the appointment of a new government and early elections next year, Richard Howitt, a European Parliament Member from the UK who helped broker the deal, announced on Twitter. 
 
"The prolonged crisis has had grave consequences for the stability of the country, its international standing and its prospects for progress towards European Union membership and it is not an exaggeration to say the timing agreement could pull the country back from the brink,” he later wrote on his Facebook page.
 
New elections will be scheduled for April 24, 2016, and will be organised by a new government that will not be led by the current prime minister, Nikola Gruevski, which was a key issue demanded by the opposition. 
 
Lawmakers from the largest opposition party, SDSM, will return to parliament in September and will participate in the implementation of the agreement, it was agreed.
 
“This agreement keeps the door open for the Euro-Atlantic perspective and boosts rule of law reforms,” Johannes Hahn, EU commissioner for European neighbourhood policy and enlargement negotiations, tweeted.
 
The four party leaders involved in the negotiations – Gruevski from the ruling VMRO-DPMNE, Ali Ahmeti from its coalition partner the ethnic Albanian DUI, and the opposition's Zoran Zaev from SDSM and Menduh Thaci from the ethnic Albanian DPA – reached an initial agreement on June 2 to have early elections but have been wrangling over the details ever since. 
 
Zaev said that the resignation of Gruevski will take place before the end of 2015, and that the new government will be elected by January 15, with SDSM and the opposition taking five ministries; SDSM will propose the new ministers of the interior as well as labour and social policy, and in addition will appoint deputy ministers with veto rights in the ministries of finance, agriculture and information society.
 
The agreement also allegedly envisages the election of a special public prosecutor to investigate information revealed through SDSM’s project "The Truth about Macedonia". In February, Zaev accused Gruevski of having ordered a massive wiretapping campaign that targeted more than 20,000 Macedonians.
 
Since his first accusations, Zaev has made many more allegations, and has been publishing taped phone conversations concerning, among other things, the current government’s allegedly heavy-handed involvement in the judiciary, media and key appointments. 
 
According to Gruevski, the scandal is a plot by foreign intelligence services, while Zaev claims he received the taped phone conversations from a whistleblower and that the recordings are real.
Read in IntelliNews Pro
Get IntelliNews Pro

Related Articles

Macedonia kept on hold as Balkans edges towards EU goal

Clare Nuttall in Bucharest -   Macedonia’s EU accession progress remains stalled amid the country’s worst political crisis in 14 years, while most countries in the Southeast Europe region have ... more

Austria's Erste rides CEE recovery to swing to profit in Jan-Sep

bne IntelliNews - Erste Group Bank saw the continuing economic recovery across Central and Eastern Europe push its January-September financial results back into net profit of €764.2mn, the ... more

EU, Western Balkans leaders agree action plan for refugee crisis

bne IntelliNews - Leaders of EU member states and Southeast European countries on the main ... more

Follow Us On

Most Read

  1. Ukraine's birth rate plummets to 300-year low as country’s population collapses
    7 days ago
  2. Fresh evidence suggests that the April 2022 Istanbul peace deal to end the war in Ukraine was stillborn
    7 days ago
  3. EU finally boosts defence investment into arms production as Ukraine runs out of ammo
    1 month ago
  4. Russia’s war economy boosted by rising oil prices
    8 days ago
  5. Poland’s Orlen paid $400mn to scammers for oil that never arrived
    12 days ago
  1. Russia could pay off its entire external debt tomorrow, in cash
    25 days ago
  2. Speculation swirls of “Men in Blue” in Crocus City Hall terrorist attack linked to FSB
    29 days ago
  3. Albanians campaign on social media to keep bus bridge created in freak accident
    1 year ago
  4. BRICS announce a blockchain-based payment system to create a common currency
    27 days ago
  5. UBN: Russia could take the Baltic states in 48 hours
    1 month ago

Reports

Dismiss