April 22 (SeeNews) - The European Union is considering sanctions against Macedonia after a planned meeting between the leaders of the country's main parties intended to help break a political deadlock failed, the European Union's enlargement commissioner and members of the European Parliament said.
"In the absence of any further progress, we are now forced to consider further actions to meet the requirements clearly laid out by the European Council, European Commission and European Parliament," MEPs Eduard Kukan, Richard Howitt and Ivo Vajgl and Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn said in a joint statement on Thursday.
The EU officials also said that Macedonia, which has applied to become member of the bloc, is shifting away from achieving this goal.
"We deeply regret retrograde steps that move the country further away from its aspirations towards European Union accession," the statement also said.
Last week Macedonia's president Gjorgi Ivanov surprisingly announced he is halting an investigations against politicians on charges they had ordered large-scape wire-tapping of political opponents and media. His decision triggered mass street protests with thousands gathering every day and demanding that the president step down.
"We also acknowledge the statements and actions by civil society in the country and express our full support for all peaceful efforts to ensure pluralism and the freedom of opinion, which are central values in all European democracies," the EU officials said in their statement.
Macedonia has been locked in a political crisis since January 2015 when opposition SDSM 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 charged Zaev with trying to destabilise the country.
In a bid to break the political deadlock, in June the main political parties, with the mediation of the European Union, reached a deal to hold early elections on April 24. On February 22, the polls were postponed for June 5 under pressure from the EU and the US, which insisted that Macedonia needed more time to meet the international community's requirements for organising credible elections. The SDSM, however, said it will boycott the elections because it believes the key EU requirements for fair and credible votes have not been met yet.
Macedonia was granted an EU candidate status in December 2005 but is still waiting for a date to start membership negotiations.