Macedonia MPs Stay Silent on Bugging at Spy HQ

A group of Macedonian legislators from the parliamentary commission responsible for oversight of the secret police spent two hours at their headquarters on Tuesday but did not raise the illegal surveillance issue.

The MPs had a lengthy conversation with the new head of the secret police, Ljupco Andonovski, but did not inspect the premises or get any information about the technical equipment used there.

"We got a detailed description of their work and we think that the meeting was productive? We will have more meetings in the future," said Antonio Milososki, a legislator from the ruling VMRO DPMNE party and a former foreign minister.

Regarding the illegal surveillance scandal, Milososki said that it might be tackled during some future visit.

Macedonia's opposition alleged that Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski masterminded the surveillance of over 20,000 people and has released secretly-recorded official conversations that point to corruption, electoral fraud and misuse of office.

The former head of the commission and head of the opposition New Social Democrats, Tito Petkovski, said that the parliamentary commission was just putting on a show after criticism from Brussels over the surveillance scandal.

"They are trying to simulate some activities? but it has nothing to do with real parliamentary control over the work of security services," Petkovski said.

After the EU brokered a deal to end the political crisis by holding early elections next April, the European Commission sent a report detailing urgent reforms to the Macedonian government, part of which strongly criticised the secret police for overstepping their authority.

The European Commission said the security service appeared "to have been operating outside...