PPO Law Negotiations Between SDSM and VMRO-DPMNE Fall Through

The leaders’ meeting between PM and SDSM leader Zoran Zaev and VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski started at around 8 pm on Tuesday. After waiting for more than six hours, all journalists left Parliament, where the meeting was taking place, revolted because the meeting was still underway until that time while nobody was giving statements and information. One hour later, the negotiations fell through. According to sources, the offer on the table was to have two prosecutor offices, one of which will prosecute high corruption committed by any functionaries. The proposal was the Chief of this office to be put forward by the opposition, which was refused by VMRO-DPMNE. They did not deem it acceptable for this new prosecutor’s office to prosecute only future corrupted functionaries, meaning crimes committed only after its formation. What VMRO-DPMNE were more interested in was to name the prosecutor which would take their cases, which was unacceptable for SDSM because they considered the opposition would destroy and close the cases. SPO cases, opened after 30 June, were requested to be closed by law by Hristijan Mickoski. After the long and unsuccessful meeting, the government negotiation team briefed that the SPO cases’ future is secure in the hands of PPO. All investigations, pre-investigations and cases continue in the full independent jurisdiction of the State Public Prosecutor’s Office. According to them, the Chief of PPO will determine which public prosecutor continues which case. With this, as they said, the fate of the cases is in the hands of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the judiciary, and not on the negotiating table between political parties.