VMRO DPMNE party

European Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn's spokesperson said the Commission regretted that Macedonia's party leaders had breached an October 6 deadline to agree electoral reforms.

The deadline was set by Hahn during his visit to Macedonia last month.

EU-facilitated talks on the package of electoral reforms ahead of the elections in April appear to have got have stuck.

The latest logjam arose after the ruling parties on Tuesday proposed a controversial law outlawing the publication of any materials related to the opposition's illegal surveillance claims.

Macedonia's main ruling VMRO DPMNE party and its junior partner, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, on Tuesday submitted a draft law that aims to outlaw the publication and re-publication of the content of the opposition's controversial wiretaps.

After recently adopting changes to the Law on Offences, reducing fines for many smaller offences, MPs from Gruevski's ruling VMRO DPMNE party plan similar changes to the Law on Trade Companies.

The changes already in parliamentary procedure will tailor penalties according to the size and past record of the firms.

A proposal to raise the number of diaspora MPs from three to 20 in the 123-seat parliament has met a cold response from the main opposition Social Democrats.

The Social Democrats said the idea, presented as the parties mull electoral changes ahead of the snap elections set for next April, was "a plan to avoid electoral defeat" on the part of the ruling VMRO DPMNE party.

In a sign of growing disarray in the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, two leading figures, the MP and head of the party's general assembly, Zuluf Adili, and Gzim Ostreni, a former DUI secretary general, said they will form a new party called Unity.

Ostreni was one-time head of the general staff of the ethnic Albanian insurgents during the armed conflict of 2001.

After marathon talks, Macedonia's political parties have agreed on the appointment of a special prosecutor who will be tasked with investigating the illegal surveillance claims that have rocked the government.

"A deal was reached. We have a prosecutor," Antonio Milososki, from the negotiating team of the ruling VMRO DPMNE party, tweeted on Tuesday morning.

Commisioner Hahn's visit comes as inter-party talks in Macedonia within the EU facilitated working group are stuck on the matter of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate illegal surveillance cases.

Hahn is due to visit Macedonia on September 18, the European Commission spokesperson, Maja Kocijancic, confirmed.

The Social Democrats' vice-president, Radmila Shekerinska, said Monday's ruling of the Skopje Criminal Court, which said tapes provided by the opposition cannot be used as evidence in court, was a provocation aimed at forcing them to quit talks on the EU-brokered crisis deal signed in June.

She said Macdonia's main ruling party was the real actor behind the court decision.

EU-mediated talks held on Wednesday on the appointment of a new special prosecutor in Macedonia to deal with illegal surveillance claims are expected to resume at the weekend.

Monday is the unofficial deadline set by the EU facilitator in the talks, former Belgian MP Peter Vanhoutte, for an agreement on the legal framework to be submitted to parliament for adoption.