Currently, a total of 24 diplomatic and consular missions are without an ambassador or consul general, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Focus, pointing out that candidates have already been selected for 11 of them, who will take office at various times after the completion of the legal procedure.
"We are talking about the diplomatic and consular missions in Athens, Budapest, Bucharest, Cairo, Canberra, London, Pristina, Sarajevo, Sofia, Stockholm and The Hague. By the end of August, it is expected that ambassadors in London Ilina Mangova , in The Hague Linda Salieska-Ilyazovska and in Canberra Stojanche Kitanoski will leave for their mandates, " the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Recently, specifically in June, Mangova, Salieska and Kitanoski presented their platforms for diplomatic activities before the parliamentary Foreign Policy Committee, while previously in May, Fadil Zendeli, Dimitar Blazevski and Vele Trpevski also passed this filter , presenting their theses before leaving for diplomatic service in Copenhagen, Kiev and Tirana.
"In parallel, talks are underway between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, the Government and the President of the country, in order to identify candidates for heads of diplomatic and consular missions who should fill the vacant positions ," the MFA said.
Otherwise, the legal procedure stipulates that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs proposes the candidate for ambassador, after which the opinion and consent of the President is sought, and then an agrement or consent from the country where the ambassador is sent. Incidentally, the candidate must also pass the parliamentary committee on foreign policy, after which the Government makes a formal decision, and the President signs the Decree on appointment.
A few months ago, Foreign Minister Timcho Mucunski stated that intensive work is being done to fill vacant positions in diplomatic and consular missions. As a key feature of this process, he emphasized that over 60 percent of the new candidates are career diplomats with over 2 decades of experience in the department, which, according to him, is in line with the efforts to professionalize the Macedonian diplomatic network.
– We changed the Law on Foreign Affairs to require at least 50 percent of the heads of the DCM to be ambassadors from the professional staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in practice we are going with over 60 percent, and this is evident from the latest group of appointments – said Mucunski on one occasion.
In total, Macedonia has embassies in 43 countries and also has 9 consulates general. After the political changes in 2024, i.e. after the VMRO-DPMNE came to power, over 10 ambassadors appointed during the previous SDSM government were recalled, mainly on the grounds that they had not been heard by the parliamentary committee on foreign policy.
That is, 8 ambassadors were recalled with this formal explanation, while in the meantime they were summoned for consultations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the mandate of several more ambassadors was terminated, including Ljubomir Frčkoski (former ambassador to the UN mission in New York), Andrej Žernovski (former ambassador to Romania), Vesel Memedi (former ambassador to Rome)...
Also, at the end of last year, Osvit Rosoklija from Vienna, Austria, and Slobodan Uzunov from New Delhi, India, were recalled, while at the same time the ambassador to Brazil, Igor Popov , was also named non-resident ambassador to Uruguay. Earlier that year, by decree of President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, the following were recalled:
Jakup Rexhepi (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Cenk Sejfula (Sweden), Metodija Belevski (Belgium and Luxembourg), Agneza Rusi Popovska (Bulgaria), Emil Krsteski (Prague), Zeqir Ramcilovic (Montenegro), Katerina Stavreska (Great Britain and Northern Ireland) and Pajo Avirovic (Permanent Mission to the International Organizations, based in Vienna).
All in all, over ten ambassadors were replaced in a short period of time for various reasons - some withdrew on their own after they began being called for consultations, others were recalled by decree due to certain violations, with the main formal reason being that they bypassed the parliamentary committee on foreign policy.
Namely, the path to launching an initiative to recall a dozen ambassadors was legally paved by the current ruling majority, by voting on an authentic interpretation of 2 articles of the Law on Foreign Affairs at the end of 2024. According to the authentic interpretation, the hearing of ambassadors in the Parliament is mandatory, so all those who did not pass this filter were recalled.
However, many of the "old guard" have continued to hold the ambassadorial position to this day, as is the case with Nikola Tupančevski in Belgrade (Minister of Justice in the SDSM government), Goran Milevski in Ljubljana (former LDP leader and MP), Edmond Ademi in Madrid (advisor to former Prime Minister Zoran Zaev )...
This group also includes the Macedonian ambassador to Russia, Nenad Kolev , a career diplomat, who was reported to have caused an incident in the middle of Moscow while intoxicated. Although this "scandal" occurred 2 years ago, it was revealed while the country was recently conducting a so-called strategic dialogue with the United States.
Meanwhile, the current government has appointed or sent new ambassadors to several destinations. Among them is nephrologist Igor Nikolov , who left for ambassadorial duty in Paris, France. Then there are Dragan Gjurchevski to Croatia, Andrijana Cvetkovic to Japan, Orhan Murtezani to NATO headquarters in Brussels, etc.
