July 15 (SeeNews) - The European Commission welcomes the commitment to an agreement reached earlier this week by the four main political parties in Macedonia which includes preparing to hold general elections on April 24, 2016, Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn and three MEPs who brokered the talks between the parties said on Wednesday.
The agreement also includes the return to parliament by the opposition SDSM party and the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the issues surrounding or arising from the interception of communications, Commissioner Hahn and MEPs Ivo Vaigl, Richard Howitt and Eduard Kukan, who facilitated the talks alongside the EU and US Ambassadors to Skopje, said in a joint statement published on the website of the European Commission.
The progress of the agreed points will be discussed, inter alia, at a meeting of the High Level Accession Dialogue which will take place in September with the involvement of all signatory parties as well as civil society, the Commission added.
In June, Macedonia's political leaders agreed on holding early parliamentary elections by the end of April 2016 to end the political crisis in the country.
The political crisis in the country started in January when opposition leader Zoran Zaev accused the coalition government of the conservative VMRO-DPMNE and the ethnic Albanians' DUI of corruption, wiretapping illegally thousands of people and covering-up a murder. For its part, the government has charged Zaev with trying to destabilize the country. The political crisis was exacerbated by an anti-terrorist operation in the northern town of Kumanovo in May which ended with eight policemen killed and more than 37 wounded, raising concerns about possible inter-ethnic violence.
Macedonia was granted an European union candidate status in December 2005. In October 2009, the European Commission recommended the opening of accession negotiations with Macedonia but later postponed the launch of entry talks country due to Greece’s opposition to the name of the country.
The Commission has repeatedly said that Macedonia can start accession negotiations once it resolves its name dispute with Greece. In 2008, Greece also blocked an invitation to Macedonia to join NATO.
The country was on the brink of civil war in 2001 after minority ethnic Albanians took up arms, demanding bigger rights. The conflict ended in August 2001 with the European Union-brokered Ohrid Agreement, which gave ethnic Albanians wider civil freedoms in exchange for guerrilla disarmament which ended in 2003.