Hahn Brokers Snap Election Deal in Macedonia

After almost nine hours of talks with Macedonia's warring leaders in Skopje, Commissioner Hahn on Tuesday said he had extracted an agreement on a transition period leading up to snap elections that must take place by next April.

It remains unclear whether Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski will step down during this period and who will be in charge of the transitional period before the snap polls.

The opposition has demanded an interim period in which the electoral roll is checked and electoral flaws addressed.

Calling the talks "constructive" and with all four main party leaders standing at his side, Hahn said the electoral roll would have to be cleared up to ensure fair polls before the election takes place.

In a brief address in Skopje, Hahn announced a new meeting for next week in Brussels between Prime Minister Gruevski, opposition Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev, and himself at which presumably more details will be discussed.

"We have agreed to see a kind of a transitional period and it was agreed that by the end of April next year, there should be early elections," Hahn explained. "It's important to prepare the country [for elections by then]," he added.

Until the next meeting in Brussels, all the participants at Tuesday's negotiations have said they will give no more comments about what has been discussed.

The negotiations are an attempt to resolve a deep political crisis over claims of mass illegal surveillance in Macedonia.

The opposition accuses Gruevski, in power since 2006, of orchestrating the surveillance of over 20,000 people, and is demanding that he and his government resign.

Gruevski has insisted that compromising tapes of officials' conversations, which have been released in...