Macedonia Opposition Suspends Crisis Talks with Govt

The opposition Social Democrats, SDSM, said they were withdrawing from the talks after the National Prosecutors Council on Wednesday gave the green light to just seven out of the 14 proposed deputy special prosecutors who will investigate alleged mass illegal wiretapping by the Macedonian authorities.

"For us the [crisis] agreement is no longer active... We are retreating from the talks to consultations inside the party. We will announce our next steps tomorrow," SDSM leader Zoran Zaev told BIRN.

The opposition insists that the move was the government's doing and a breach of the EU-brokered political deal reached this summer aimed at ending the political crisis in Macedonia that was sparked by the unlawful mass surveillance claims.

"We are seriously thinking of leaving the talks because there is no point in resuming something that the government is blocking in each possible way," a high-ranking SDSM official told BIRN earlier under condition of anonymity.

The National Prosecutors Council session was already two weeks late and came only after the European Union delegation to Skopje and the United States embassy urged it on Tuesday to stop delaying and allow the team proposed by recently-appointed Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva to start working as soon as possible.

Just minutes before the opposition threatened to leave, the EU facilitator in the inter-party talks, former Belgian MP Peter Vanhoutte, came out to tell media what was supposed to be a good news, that the parties have finally reached an agreement over the problematic package of electoral reforms ahead of next April's snap general polls.

The deadline for an agreement on this expired on October 6 and the government and the opposition exchanged barbs over who was to...