EU envoy Mr Francois Leotard said today he hoped to get a positive response in the next few days from ethnic Albanian and Macedonian negotiators to end six months of conflict.
The former French defence minister said in a telephone interview: "It is possible that we'll get a signing rapidly, but it is not certain".
But he said he was confident both sides were anxious to achieve a political settlement for Macedonia.
Ethnic Albanian rebels are battling government forces, with the rebels claiming to be fighting for greater political rights for the country's ethnic Albanian minority.
Yesterday, Albanian demands for their language to be give equal status with Macedonian blocked the second day of peace talks between political leaders.
Mr Leotard said that if an agreement was reached soon, NATO troops would deploy in Macedonia; the rebels in the mountains of the northwest would disarm; and, possibly, later, a series of measures would be implemented to help Macedonia economically.
The talks hinge on agreement over two key ethnic Albanian demands - that Albanian become an official language and that an ethnic Albanian police force independent of the state be set up for areas where ethnic Albanians have a significant population.
AFP