Working groups for the media are resting, while no progress has been made

It is still unknown if negotiations will continue today by working groups of political parties who are signatories to the Przhino Agreement. This follows the latest meeting, which took place on Thursday 4th of January this year and ended without anyone involved changing entrenched positions. So far, according to sources connected to the parties, the Belgian negotiator Peter Vanhoutte has scheduled no further meetings. Negotiations have been stalled since Friday after bilateral meetings with Mr Vanhoutte which had reiterated the red lines from which the parties do not intend to deviate from. There has been no new meeting scheduled and there is no suggestion as to and when any would take place. However, the law proposed by the SDSM is not acceptable either to the Association of Journalists of Macedonia and was expressly rejected by the VMRO-DPMNE. According to the President of the AJM Naser Selmani, the VMRO-DPMNE and SDSM have all joined efforts to undermine the proposal by the European mediator Peter Vanhoutte to reform the media system.