# Antonio Milošoski

# Antonio Milošoski

**Antonio Milošoski** (also rendered Antonijo Milososki and Antonijo Miloshoski; born 29 January 1976 in Tetovo) is a politician of North Macedonia and a member of [VMRO-DPMNE](/organizations/vmro-dpmne). He was minister of [foreign affairs](/organizations/foreign-affairs) from 26 August 2006 to 28 July 2011, succeeding Ilinka Mitreva and preceding Nikola Poposki. He held the post during the premiership of Nikola Gruevski. He entered the Assembly of North Macedonia in July 2006. On 14 June 2024 parliament elected him a vice-speaker. The [NATO Parliamentary Assembly](/organizations/nato-parliamentary-assembly) lists him as deputy head of North Macedonia’s delegation since 2020 and, in the biography he supplied, as chair of the Assembly’s commission on European affairs.

The Assembly’s published note describes him as Macedonian and as holding a master’s degree in political sciences from the University of Bonn. A curriculum circulated for a 2009 meeting of the [European Parliament](/organizations/european-parliament)’s foreign-affairs committee states that he graduated from the Faculty of Law at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje in 1999, completed a master’s in European integration at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Bonn in 2001–2002, and from November 2002 was a doctoral candidate in political science at the Gerhard Merkator University in Duisburg, where it also lists him as a research fellow from April 2005. The same document records earlier posts as chief of cabinet to Deputy Prime Minister Dosta Dimovska in 1999–2000 and as government spokesman from May 2000 to September 2001, and membership of the VMRO-DPMNE executive committee from September 2004.

As foreign minister he handled the dispute with Greece over the constitutional name “Republic of Macedonia,” which Athens argued could imply a claim on its own region of Macedonia. At NATO’s Bucharest summit in April 2008, Greece blocked an invitation that the other allies were prepared to extend; Milošoski said the country had been “punished not for what we did but for who we are,” and the delegation left the remaining sessions. On 17 November 2008 the state, under the [United Nations](/organizations/united-nations) reference “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,” asked the International Court of Justice to find that Greece’s objection breached the 1995 Interim Accord. In its judgment of 5 December 2011 the Court held that Greece had objected to NATO admission and had thereby breached Article 11, paragraph 1, of the accord. While he was in office, the European Union decided that holders of biometric passports from the country could travel visa-free to the Schengen area for short stays from 19 December 2009.

On 30 June 2011 Milošoski announced that he would leave the foreign ministry in order to spend more time with his family, and said he would remain in parliament and continue to chair its foreign-affairs commission. North Macedonia became NATO’s 30th member on 27 March 2020, after the 2018 [Prespa Agreement](/facts/prespa-agreement) with Greece, years after his resignation. In the 14 June 2024 vote, 69 deputies supported him, alongside Jovan Mitreski of SDSM and Vesna Bendevska of the ZNAM movement; he was absent that day for health reasons and was to give his solemn statement at a later sitting.

## Early life and education

### Family and schooling

Antonio Milošoski (Macedonian: Антонио Милошоски; also rendered Antonijo Milososki, Antonio Milososki and Antonijo Miloshoski) was born on 29 January 1976 in Tetovo. The curriculum vitae issued by the [Ministry of Foreign Affairs](/organizations/ministry-of-foreign-affairs), and later reproduced on the website of the Assembly of North Macedonia, records that date and place—phrased there as Tetovo, Republic of Macedonia—and, in the text current around 2010, listed him as married. It does not name his parents or describe a childhood household. In 1976 Tetovo was a city in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, then a constituent republic of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

The 2009 *Macedonian Encyclopedia* is the reference that records his secondary schooling. Its entry states that he finished the gymnasium “Mirko Milevski” in Kičevo in 1994, then graduated from the Faculty of Law in Skopje. The state secondary school in the town is officially styled ОСУ „Мирко Милески“ (Mirko Mileski); the encyclopedia spelling is a variant of that name. The ministry biography omits the gymnasium and begins the education record with the law degree. The same text lists English, German, Serbian and Croatian as foreign languages and does not claim any others.

### University and graduate study

In 1999 Milošoski graduated from the Faculty of Law in Skopje. That faculty is part of Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje. On the faculty’s fiftieth anniversary in 2001, after he had already graduated, its council renamed it the Iustinianus Primus Faculty of Law. A 2006 profile in the *General-Anzeiger Bonn* described him as a trained lawyer (*studierter Jurist*).

From 2001 to 2002 he undertook postgraduate study at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Bonn, the University of Bonn. His own biography calls the qualification a “Master of European Integration.” The *General-Anzeiger* identified the course as the master’s in European studies at the university’s Center for European Integration Studies (Zentrum für Europäische Integrationsforschung) and wrote that he held a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service.

His ministry biography dates a doctoral candidacy in political science from November 2002 at the “Gerhard Merkator University” in Duisburg, the English rendering it uses for Gerhard Mercator University, and a research fellowship at that university’s Institute of Political Science from April 2005. By December 2004 a report on a new research grant already placed him at the Duisburg institute: the Volkswagen Foundation had awarded 186,500 euro over two years for “Konfliktbeilegung durch Europäisierung? Griechenland und seine Nachbarn Mazedonien und Türkei” (“Conflict settlement through Europeanization? Greece and its neighbors Macedonia and Turkey”), led by Heinz-Jürgen Axt, and named Milošoski among those taking part. On 28 August 2006 the University of Duisburg-Essen said he had been employed there as a political scientist until the end of June 2006 and had worked on Axt’s project from 2004 until that summer’s parliamentary elections. The university said the dissertation, supervised by Axt as holder of a Jean Monnet chair, concerned Macedonia and Greece after the Cold War and was titled “Von der Konfrontation zum Pragmatismus und Dynamismus” (“From confrontation to pragmatism and dynamism”). With Oliver Schwarz he had interviewed Macedonian decision-makers in politics, business and society about approximation to the European Union and relations with Greece.

He left that research post at the end of June 2006. The university’s announcement, published two days after he became foreign minister, still described the doctorate as unfinished. The ministry biography still in use in 2011 continued to list him as a doctoral candidate rather than as the holder of a doctorate, and a later member-supplied note for the NATO Parliamentary Assembly records only the Bonn master’s.

## Early political career

### Youth organization and first government posts

Milošoski’s first party offices were in the youth wing of VMRO-DPMNE, then led by [Ljubčo Georgievski](/people/ljubco-georgievski). Biographies issued by the Assembly and, during his later term as foreign minister, by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) list him as vice-president of the party’s Youth Union in 1997–1998, and describe him as a founder of the Euro-Atlantic Youth Forum (MEAF), an association based in Skopje. In 1997, as a law student, he spoke for protests against a law allowing Albanian-language instruction at the Pedagogical Faculty. On television he said party membership did not cancel his standing as a citizen and student, denied that the protests were nationalist or xenophobic, and called the bill partial and unconstitutional, arguing that jobs mattered more than the language of instruction. A later *Fokus* profile places him already inside the youth union’s bodies.

VMRO-DPMNE won the 1998 parliamentary elections under Georgievski, and several people who had been prominent in the protests, Milošoski among them, entered the new government. From 1999 to 2000 he was chief of cabinet to Deputy Prime Minister Dosta Dimovska, a senior party figure who by the spring of 2001 was interior minister. Between January and May 2000 he also wrote columns for the daily *Dnevnik*. In May 2000 he became spokesman of the government.

### Spokesman during the 2001 conflict

He held the post until September 2001, through the [2001 insurgency](/facts/2001-insurgency-in-macedonia). [Human Rights Watch](/organizations/human-rights-watch) dated the outbreak to February 2001, when the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army began fighting state forces. The NLA said it was opposing discrimination; the government said the group sought territory and blamed radicalism from Kosovo. Fighting reached Tetovo in March, when the BBC identified Milošoski as spokesman while the army massed tanks and troops for what the authorities called a final push.

His statements tracked the Georgievski cabinet’s refusal to negotiate with armed groups even as outside pressure pushed it toward a wider coalition. After riots in Bitola followed an ambush that killed eight security personnel, he said the violence only served what he called the terrorist aim of civil war, and he asked the public to support the security forces as the guardians of the state’s integrity. On 8 May 2001 he announced an agreement to bring the opposition [Social Democratic Union of Macedonia](/organizations/social-democratic-union-of-macedonia) and the ethnic Albanian Party for Democratic Prosperity into a government of national unity, which he said would have the backing of more than 100 members of parliament; NATO Secretary General George Robertson and European Union foreign-policy chief [Javier Solana](/people/javier-solana) had urged that step in Skopje while pressing the authorities not to declare a state of war. Days later, with a unilateral ceasefire announced by President [Boris Trajkovski](/people/boris-trajkovski) broadly holding, Milošoski said the government would not talk to the rebels: “It is not reasonable to have a dialogue with people with Kalashnikovs in their hands.”

The fighting ended in a negotiated settlement. On 13 August 2001 the [Ohrid Framework Agreement](/facts/ohrid-agreement) was signed by Trajkovski and by Georgievski, Arben Xhaferi, [Branko Crvenkovski](/people/branko-crvenkovski) and Imer Imeri, with U.S. envoy James Pardew and EU envoy François Léotard as witnesses. It provided greater rights for ethnic minorities and a basis for the return of displaced people; in return, the NLA agreed to demobilize and hand weapons to a NATO force. Milošoski left the spokesman’s office the following month.

He spent the next years largely in Germany. Official biographies list him, from July 2004, as a weekly columnist in the Skopje daily *Utrinski vesnik*, from September 2004 as a member of the VMRO-DPMNE executive committee, and as a member of the Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft, a German academic society concerned with southeastern Europe. At the parliamentary elections of 5 July 2006 a coalition led by VMRO-DPMNE won 45 of 120 seats, the largest share, according to results published by the OSCE’s election observers from the State Election Commission. Milošoski entered the Assembly that July.

## Minister of Foreign Affairs

### Appointment and the Gruevski government

Antonio Milošoski became minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Macedonia—the constitutional name then used at home; the United Nations referred to the state as the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia—in Nikola Gruevski’s first cabinet. The Assembly confirmed that government on 26 August 2006 by 68 votes to 22, and the ministry’s biography dated his tenure from that day. Office-holder lists place the handover from Ilinka Mitreva on 28 August 2006 and the end of the term on 28 July 2011, when Nikola Poposki took the portfolio. Born on 29 January 1976, he was 30, in a cabinet whose average age was reported at about 35.

The coalition was led by Gruevski’s VMRO-DPMNE with the [Democratic Party of Albanians](/organizations/democratic-party-of-albanians) and smaller partners, and it left the largest ethnic Albanian party, the [Democratic Union for Integration](/organizations/democratic-union-for-integration), in opposition after that party had demanded a cabinet place and organized protests. Gruevski said no constitutional rule obliged him to include it. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported the stated priorities as the economy, corruption, and membership of the European Union and NATO.

### The name dispute, NATO and the Hague case

The dispute with Greece over the name dominated the rest of his term. Athens argued that “Republic of Macedonia” could imply a claim on Greece’s northern province of Macedonia and opposed a NATO invitation unless the name changed. At the Bucharest summit of 2–3 April 2008, allies invited Albania and Croatia and agreed that an invitation to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia would follow “as soon as a mutually acceptable solution to the name issue has been reached.” After Secretary General [Jaap de Hoop Scheffer](/people/jaap-de-hoop-scheffer) announced that result, the Macedonian delegation left the remaining sessions. On 7 May 2008 in Washington, Milošoski and U.S. Secretary of State [Condoleezza Rice](/people/condoleezza-rice) signed a Joint Declaration of Strategic Partnership and Cooperation, which she called a framework for economic, people-to-people and security cooperation, including possible counterterrorism training.

He told reporters in Bucharest: “The Macedonian delegation will leave the summit today. It is necessary to be with our people. This is a difficult time for a small nation.” He also said, “Macedonia was punished not for what we did but for who we are. We are Macedonians and always will be Macedonians,” thanked [George W. Bush](/people/george-w-bush) for efforts “up to the last minute,” and said that any future regional destabilization would be “the direct responsibility of Greece,” while pledging that Skopje would keep working for peace, including over Kosovo and Serbia. Rice said the United States supported NATO accession “as soon as the name dispute can be reconciled,” that “Macedonia deserves to be a member of NATO,” and that both sides should be flexible; she urged UN mediator Matthew Nimetz to intensify his efforts. Milošoski called the signing “historic,” cited troops serving with U.S. forces, and restated the NATO goal.

On 17 November 2008 the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia applied to the International Court of Justice in the case concerning the Interim Accord of 13 September 1995 (case 142). It argued that Greece had breached Article 11, paragraph 1—the pledge not to object to membership in organizations Greece already belonged to, unless the applicant would be designated differently from the provisional UN name—by blocking NATO admission at Bucharest. At the March 2011 hearings in The Hague, while he was still minister, Milošoski appeared as agent, with Nikola Dimitrov as co-agent. The judgment of 5 December 2011, after he had left office, found jurisdiction, held that Greece had objected and that the Article 11 exception did not apply, and treated a declaration of the breach as appropriate satisfaction without a further order. The name difference itself was outside the case.

### European integration and visa liberalization

The country was already an EU candidate. On 15–16 December 2005 the [European Council](/organizations/european-council) granted that status, citing the Ohrid agreement and the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, but deferred further steps to the enlargement debate, the Copenhagen political criteria, and the Union’s capacity to absorb new members. Talks were not opened while he was minister. On 7 December 2009 the Council noted the [European Commission](/organizations/european-commission)’s recommendation to open negotiations and said it would return to the matter under the next presidency. It added that good-neighbourly relations, “including a negotiated and mutually acceptable solution on the name issue, under the auspices of the UN,” remained essential.

Council Regulation (EC) No 1244/2009 of 30 November 2009 exempted nationals of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, with Montenegro and Serbia, from the short-stay visa for the Schengen Area if they held biometric passports, from 19 December 2009. The Council called this a tangible result of reforms and encouraged the same step for Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina once they met the benchmarks. Afterward, firms organized trips from poorer regions for people who then sought asylum in EU states; Austria, Germany and France were among the first to object. In May 2011, as Brussels weighed a partial or temporary return of visas, the Ministry of Justice proposed four to eight years in prison for organizing such travel for gain, fines of up to €500,000 for companies, and tighter border checks.

### Council of Europe chairmanship

From 11 May 2010 the country chaired the Committee of Ministers of the [Council of Europe](/organizations/council-of-europe) for the first time, succeeding Switzerland and due to pass the chair to Turkey in November. It labeled the term the “Macedonian Chairmanship 2010,” with a note that the UN reference remained “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.” Greek foreign minister Dimitris Droutsas filed a declaration that this abused the chair and undermined the UN talks. Milošoski answered: “As you are Greek and Carl Bildt is Swedish, I’m Macedonian and that is my fundamental human right in this Council, which is the house of human rights.”

The programme set three priorities: stronger protection of human rights, in the 60th anniversary year of the [European Convention on Human Rights](/facts/european-convention-on-human-rights) and alongside reform of the Court; integration that respected diversity, including national minorities and Roma; and youth participation. The same programme and its stocktaking also covered corruption and equality between women and men. With Secretary General [Thorbjørn Jagland](/people/thorbjorn-jagland) and Swiss foreign minister [Micheline Calmy-Rey](/people/micheline-calmy-rey), he said Skopje was ready for accession talks, citing the Commission’s 2009 report and hoping for a date in Spain’s presidency, then screening and a first chapter in mid-2011.

### Resignation

On 30 June 2011 he announced his resignation from the post he had held for five years, citing personal reasons and a wish “to spend more time with my family.” Gruevski, re-elected on 5 June with the Democratic Union for Integration, was still forming a government. Balkan Insight called Milošoski a trusted ally and reported media speculation that he might become an ambassador; he said he would remain a VMRO-DPMNE deputy and keep chairing the Assembly’s foreign-affairs commission. On 4 July he said he had parted from Gruevski “as a friend,” had been consulted on two or three successors, and would not name them. Poposki took office on 28 July 2011.

## Parliamentary career from 2011 to 2024

### Committee work

After the early parliamentary election of 5 June 2011, Antonio Milošoski, foreign minister in the outgoing VMRO-DPMNE government, sat in the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia). He led the VMRO-DPMNE coalition list in the fifth electoral district, one of six in-country districts, whose larger municipalities include Bitola, Ohrid, Struga and Kičevo. The Assembly's list of previous deputy speakers shows the new leadership in office from 12 July 2011. By 5 September 2011 an Assembly notice already called him chair of the Committee on [Foreign Policy](/organizations/foreign-policy): at a Warsaw conference of EU foreign-affairs committee chairs he raised European Union integration, government reforms and what the notice described as a blockade by Greece.

He again headed the fifth-district list at the parliamentary elections of 27 April 2014 and [11 December 2016](/facts/2016-macedonian-parliamentary-election). For the [election of 15 July 2020](/facts/2020-north-macedonian-parliamentary-election) the party placed him second in that district, behind Igor Durlovski of Bitola, and identified him as a candidate from Kičevo; the Assembly's report for 2020 includes him among the VMRO-DPMNE members. A biography supplied to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly dates the foreign-policy chairmanship from 2011 to 2024. Assembly records match that span at several points: the published composition of working bodies for 2016–2020 names him chair, with Magdalena Manaskova as deputy chair; his profile for the 2020–2024 composition again lists the Foreign Policy Committee with him as chair; and on 28 February 2022 the Assembly still identified him as chair when he met a foreign-policy delegation of Slovenia's [National Assembly](/organizations/national-assembly) led by Monika Gregorčič.

The same profiles assign him to other bodies. For 2016–2020 the Assembly listed him on the Inter-Community Relations Committee, the National European Integration Council, the Committee on the Political System and Inter-Ethnic Relations and the Committee on Elections and Appointment Issues; as a deputy member of the committees on defence and security and on European affairs; as deputy head of the delegation to the Stabilisation and Association Parliamentary Committee; and as a deputy member of the delegations to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. The 2020–2024 profile lists him on the committees for constitutional issues, European affairs, and elections and appointments, and as a deputy member of defence and security. On 23 December 2020 the Assembly elected him a full member of its delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, with Arbër Ademi as head and Ilija Nikolovski as the other member.

As chair he treated accession talks as committee business. Receiving Council of Europe monitoring rapporteurs on 16 February 2016, he said the country was in an electoral period after a political crisis and that the June 2015 Pržino agreement was meant to produce elections then scheduled for 24 April. In February 2022 he told the Slovenian delegation that Bulgaria was blocking the formal opening of EU accession negotiations — a dispute treated with the name issue and the Prespa Agreement elsewhere in this article — and called that blockade absurd; Gregorčič said Slovenia fully supported the country's European integration.

### Deputy speaker, 2014–2016

The Assembly lists Milošoski as a deputy speaker (Macedonian: *potpretsedatel*; "vice-president" on its English pages) from 2 July 2014 to 30 December 2016, the same interval it gives for Rafis Aliti. The closing date is the constitutive sitting of the Assembly elected on 11 December 2016. That sitting verified the mandates of all 120 members, by 114 votes in favour and none against, and left the election of a speaker for later. The deputy speakership therefore covered the second half of the 2014–2016 composition, while he continued to chair the Foreign Policy Committee, and it ended with that composition.

### Opposition after 2017

The Assembly elected in December 2016 did not choose a speaker for nearly four months. On the afternoon of 27 April 2017, after [Zoran Zaev](/people/zoran-zaev), leader of the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia, said the parliamentary majority should take responsibility, Milošoski told a press conference in the parliament that Zaev was calling for a parallel parliament, a parallel speaker and a "coup", and that a speaker could be elected only inside the Assembly. Later that day a majority elected [Talat Xhaferi](/people/talat-xhaferi) speaker. Protesters associated with the former ruling party, VMRO-DPMNE, then stormed the building in Skopje; Zaev was among the MPs reported injured, and VMRO-DPMNE leader Nikola Gruevski said publicly that violence was not the solution. Court cases arising from the storming, and Milošoski's other legal proceedings, are covered separately.

With VMRO-DPMNE out of office after that change of majority, the Assembly's 2016–2020 roster still named Milošoski chair of the Foreign Policy Committee. He was returned at the 2020 election on the VMRO-DPMNE list, and the profile for the following composition again listed him as that committee's chair, including for the February 2022 exchange on the Bulgarian blockage of accession talks. The term ended with the [parliamentary election of 8 May 2024](/facts/2024-north-macedonian-parliamentary-election). For that election the VMRO-DPMNE-led coalition, on lists published on 28 March 2024, placed him second in the fourth electoral district, behind Aleksandar Nikolovski — the first of these five elections in which he was not a fifth-district candidate.

## The name issue, Prespa and relations with neighbors

### Talks before Prespa

After Greece blocked NATO accession in 2008, name talks continued under United Nations mediator Matthew Nimetz. BIRN reported that in April 2013 he had suggested “Upper Republic of Macedonia.”

In May 2015 Social Democratic Union of Macedonia leader Zoran Zaev released recordings he said were of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, former foreign minister Antonio Milošoski and secret-police chief Sašo Mijalkov. A voice identified as Milošoski proposes keeping “Republic of Macedonia,” with a prefix such as Independent, Sovereign or Democratic and a bracketed suffix such as (Upper), (Northern) or (Vardar), so Athens could call the change substantial. When Gruevski doubts public acceptance, that voice says the difficulty would be short-term because the formula would look more complex than the provisional UN reference, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Zaev said this contradicted Gruevski’s public defence of the constitutional name. Gruevski told Sitel television the exchange was a normal search for options, that several formulas had been tested, and that foreign services had fabricated the tapes with the opposition to depict his government as eager to rename the country.

On a Kanal 5 podcast reported by [Deutsche Welle](/organizations/deutsche-welle) on 23 November 2024, Milošoski offered a later account of 2011. He said Mijalkov met Alex Rondos, an American of Greek origin whom he called a confidant of prime minister [George Papandreou](/people/george-papandreou), in Prague and Vienna, and that the formula discussed was “Republic of Upper Macedonia” (*Republika Gorna Makedonija*) for external use only, with nationality unchanged and the constitution left intact. He said he and Mijalkov accepted that, and Gruevski refused to sign. Contemporary U.S. comments, as relayed in that report, named no formula: spokesman Philip Crowley said Clinton had raised rule of law, media and civil society, and the hope of a settlement so Euro-Atlantic steps could proceed. Gruevski spoke to reporters alone and said only the two capitals could solve the dispute. No 2011 text of such a deal was published; the account is his retrospective claim.

### The Prespa Agreement and later implementation

On 17 June 2018 the foreign ministers of Greece and Macedonia, Nikos Kotzias and Nikola Dimitrov, signed the Prespa Agreement, providing for the name Republic of North Macedonia, with prime ministers [Alexis Tsipras](/people/alexis-tsipras) and Zaev in support. VMRO-DPMNE leader [Hristijan Mickoski](/people/hristijan-mickoski) called the deal a capitulation, though he had not then urged a referendum boycott.

Milošoski chaired the Assembly’s Foreign Policy Committee and sat on its European Affairs Committee. On 19 June he objected to the “European flag” on the ratification bill, which made European Affairs the parent committee, and said the procedure broke the rules and the constitution. He announced that the VMRO-DPMNE group would leave the Assembly’s work. Legislators voted 69–40 for a shortened procedure; opposition members, who had shouted “traitor” at Dimitrov, then walked out. On 20 June the Assembly ratified the agreement 69–0 with VMRO-DPMNE absent. Zaev called the result dignified and said nothing had been given away.

A consultative referendum on 30 September 2018 tied the agreement to European Union and NATO membership. With 98.61 percent counted, the State Election Commission reported turnout of 36.87 percent, below the 50 percent it treated as required for a binding result, with 91.48 percent of votes in favor. Zaev said he would still seek a two-thirds majority for constitutional amendments; the opposition, which had urged a boycott, called the low turnout a failure. The rename went ahead, and on 27 March 2020 North Macedonia became NATO’s 30th member.

After VMRO-DPMNE returned to office in 2024, Greek foreign minister George Gerapetritis said on 24 June that avoiding the constitutional name in domestic public speech was a flagrant violation of the duty to use “North Macedonia” uniformly at home and abroad, and that EU accession without compliance was unacceptable. In a 4 June TV 21 interview reported by the Bulgarian News Agency, Milošoski said using “Macedonia” did not breach Prespa, that NATO membership could not be revoked, and that Athens was raising the issue for its European Parliament elections.

### Bulgaria and the European path

On 1 August 2017 Zaev and Bulgarian prime minister [Boyko Borissov](/people/boyko-borissov) signed a friendship treaty in Skopje promising support for NATO and EU membership, mutual recognition of territory, a commission on disputed history, and protection of each side’s nationals without interference in internal affairs.

Bulgaria later blocked the opening of accession talks until the constitution listed Bulgarians among the founding peoples. Balkan Insight reported in July 2024 that Mickoski’s government, elected after calling that step shameful, hoped Sofia would accept “delayed implementation” until EU membership, and that neither Bulgaria nor the EU institutions had agreed.

Milošoski has separately been named in citizenship claims. In March 2021, during a Bulgarian campaign, Defence Minister Krasimir Karakachanov published names matching VMRO-DPMNE figures, including Milošoski, whom he said were on Bulgarian voter lists. Milošoski told Radio Free Europe that he had no vote in Bulgaria, did not want one, was a citizen only of Macedonia, and held no other citizenship. The outlet reported that a preliminary list for Sofia’s Vazrazhdane municipality, the district cited by Karakachanov, did not contain his name. The party called the list a fabrication.

## Controversies and legal proceedings

### Wiretaps and lustration

In February 2015 the opposition Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM), led by Zoran Zaev, began publishing covert recordings, the “bombs,” which it said showed illegal surveillance and abuse of office under Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski. SDSM accused Gruevski and his cousin, secret-police chief Sašo Mijalkov, of arranging interception of more than 20,000 people; Gruevski denied this and blamed unnamed foreign centres and the opposition. The tapes later went to a Special Public Prosecutor’s Office created in North Macedonia in 2015 under an internationally mediated agreement. A prosecution law adopted in March 2020 abolished the office, after chief prosecutor Katica Janeva was charged in the separate “Extortion” case, and sent its unfinished files to the regular prosecution.

On 8 April 2015, in Bitola, SDSM played a recording it said was of VMRO-DPMNE legislator Antonio Milošoski calling Tome Adžiev, head of the commission that conducted lustration of alleged collaborators with the Yugoslav-era security service. A voice identified as Milošoski’s asked that a Kičevo judge be named a communist-era informant: “He is making a lot of trouble for us. Do it as soon as possible.” Adžiev replied, “We will process him.” They were also reported discussing a person who would file the request required to open a case. Since 2009 the opposition had accused the commission of targeting critics and in December 2012 withdrew two members; Adžiev denied political interference. Balkan Insight gave the name as Dragi Dineski. The judge who said the call concerned him, and whom prosecutors later named, was Dragi Bileski of the Kičevo court (Bilevski in some domestic reports). The [European Court of Human Rights](/organizations/justice-ecthr) recorded that the commission cleared him on 12 September 2011, reopened the file on 16 November 2012, found that as a student in the 1970s he had been an “operational liaison” of the security service, and that his judgeship then ended early. In *Bileski v. North Macedonia* (6 June 2019, final on 6 September 2019) the Court held the proceedings unfair under Article 6 § 1, without deciding whether he had collaborated, and awarded 2,400 euros for non-pecuniary damage. He died before the criminal case against the former commissioners ended.

### The property case

On 9 October 2020 the Skopje Criminal Court confirmed the “Moḱnik” indictment. Milošoski was charged with fraud and abuse of official position—Balkan Insight’s rendering was embezzlement and misuse of office—while his father, Miloš Milošoski, and Milosim Vojneski, former mayor of Makedonski Brod, were charged over the sale, and ten former commissioners, including Adžiev, with misuse of office. Prosecutors alleged that in 2011 the father and Vojneski misled councillors into selling, below market value and without a proper tender, a 157-square-metre building and 3,920-square-metre yard in Ižišta (also Ižište; Izista in some English reports). The property belonged to Makedonski Brod, was used by Plasnica, and the alleged loss was about 50,000 euros. After Plasnica’s mayor sought an inquiry, the charges alleged, Milošoski pressed institutions not to annul the sale and prompted Bileski’s lustration, believing the judge close to that mayor and likely to rule against his father. Milošoski made no comment when the indictment was confirmed. VMRO-DPMNE called the case political persecution by Zaev’s party, meant to frighten the public and influence legislators. When the trial opened on 25 March 2021, the defendants said they were not guilty.

No court decided whether the offences occurred. After Criminal Code amendments of 6 September 2023, the court that October stopped the case against the ten former commissioners, including Adžiev, as time-barred; fraud counts continued against the other three. On 22 February 2024 the prosecutor reclassified the remaining charges in closing argument. The Basic Criminal Court in Skopje rejected the indictment proposal because absolute statutory limitation had expired, with costs charged to the budget. The prosecutor’s office told Telma that the court had excluded the wiretaps, that the charge could not be proved on the other evidence, and that the 2023 amendments had also brought limitation forward.

### Security incidents and political responses

On 13 May 2017 the Interior Ministry said Milošoski’s father, identified as M.M., 66, from Kičevo, found an explosive device inside a basement door at his house in Ižišta. While mowing he had struck a metal object that smoked and irritated his eyes, nose and chest. A prosecutor, a crime-scene team and an anti-terrorist unit inspected the house, and the material went for analysis. The next day Milošoski called it an attempt to kill his parents and pressure linked to his politics. SDSM condemned the incident, demanded punishment, and blamed destabilization on Gruevski and VMRO-DPMNE. The reporting cited here does not name a suspect or a completed prosecution.

On 12 February 2020, in the Assembly’s European Affairs Committee, Milošoski played a recording he said a whistle-blower had given him, about financing of a television station linked to Bojan Jovanovski and a speaker with the initials Z.Z. The justice minister told him to go to prosecutors; SDSM called the tape a lie. Later that month VMRO-DPMNE released another recording on which Zaev confirmed his voice while denying impropriety; on 25 February an opposition march in Skopje demanded an investigation for alleged abuse of office.

## Assembly leadership since 2024

### Election as vice-speaker

The parliamentary election of 8 May 2024 in North Macedonia gave a plurality to the VMRO-DPMNE-led coalition “Your Macedonia,” headed by Hristijan Mickoski. With more than 99 percent of the vote processed, the State Election Commission’s preliminary count gave the coalition 58 seats in the 120-member Assembly. On 30 May the commission declared the elections concluded after the Administrative Court rejected a European Front request for another repeat vote in one polling station. On 28 May the Assembly elected Afrim Gashi, of Alternativa in the Worth It coalition, as speaker, with 76 votes in favour and six against. VMRO-DPMNE, Worth It and ZNAM had nominated him; MPs from the Left objected that a small party would preside.

On 14 June, after endorsement by the Committee on Election and Appointment Issues, the Assembly elected three vice-presidents. Antonio Milošoski of VMRO-DPMNE received 69 votes, Jovan Mitreski of the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) 82, and Vesna Bendevska of ZNAM 70. The state news agency called the election unanimous. Milošoski was absent for health reasons and was to make the solemn statement at a later sitting. The session also amended the decision on committee chairs and members. Vice-presidents assist the speaker, replace an absent speaker on a set rota, and serve four years; the leadership page lists Milošoski with Mitreski and Bendevska. His NATO Parliamentary Assembly biography lists him as vice-president and chairman of the Commission on European Affairs, which the Assembly and the news agency call the Committee on European Affairs; by 24 September 2024 the agency identified him as its chair. Mitreski’s election gave SDSM a presidium seat. The Democratic Union for Integration-led European Front stayed outside the majority, and on 23 June its MPs left the sitting that elected the government. Coordinator Blerim Bexheti said the cabinet lacked “legitimacy from the ethnic communities.”

### European affairs and electoral reform

As chair, Milošoski has been a main parliamentary contact on enlargement. On 24 September 2024 he joined Speaker Gashi and Sanja Lukarevska, chair of the Committee on Finances and Budget, in talks with members of the European Court of Auditors and European Union ambassador Michalis Rokas on the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans and the reform agendas that condition financial aid. He said the plan served both the region and the Union. On 25 February 2025 he met Denmark’s non-resident ambassador, Pernille Dahler Kardel, and asked that Danish support continue during Denmark’s presidency of the Council of the EU later that year. She said the Western Balkans were welcome if they met standards on democracy, the rule of law and human rights.

The post has also placed him in the dispute with Bulgaria. Balkan Insight reported in July 2024 that opening accession talks still required constitutional amendments naming Bulgarians among the constituent peoples, and that delaying the change until membership had not moved Sofia or Brussels. On 17 February 2025 Milošoski called a “deferred effect” for the amendments a rational way to lift Bulgaria’s blockade and let the EU manage the path to membership. He cited unkept promises after earlier changes, including the name change, and backed Mickoski’s request for guarantees from Washington, Brussels and Sofia.

He has represented VMRO-DPMNE in talks on the Electoral Code. On 2 June 2025 Mickoski said the party’s MPs would back one nationwide district that included a diaspora vote, and that talks with other parties had not begun. The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights found the 2024 elections competitive and voters able to choose with adequate information, but the law incompletely regulated, and public campaign money linked to media access in a way that favoured larger parties. The report made 25 recommendations, including a restructuring of that funding.

On 11 May 2026 he said a Ministry of Justice group chaired by Igor Filkov had agreed ten such amendments, including limits on budgets, official social-media accounts, hiring and public advertising during campaigns. SDSM was absent; VMRO-DPMNE, ZNAM, the Left, DUI and smaller parties were present. On 30 September 2026 he said VMRO-DPMNE would accept one district if consensus existed, as it had argued before talks stalled over three- and eight-district schemes and a DUI proposal for a five-percent threshold. He said the party would back public party financing on terms set by the Left and DUI, and that citizens abroad should have a secure electronic or postal vote. He called SDSM’s boycott a handicap and said the Left’s position on advertising money was still open.

## International parliamentary activity

### NATO Parliamentary Assembly

The NATO Parliamentary Assembly, created in 1955, describes itself as a specialised forum in which members of parliament from across the NATO Alliance discuss and shape decisions on Alliance security. It is institutionally separate from NATO and presents itself as a link between the Alliance and Allied parliaments.

The Assembly of North Macedonia had been an associate member since March 1996. It became a full member on 27 March 2020, the day North Macedonia deposited its instrument of accession and joined NATO as its 30th ally. Antonio Milošoski, of VMRO-DPMNE, is listed as deputy head of the delegation, with membership dated from 2020. The NATO PA states that the biography is supplied by the member and that it is not liable for it. The entry uses the codes DSC, DSC/TC, PC, PC/TR, SC and STC: the Defence and Security Committee (whose sub-committees include one on transatlantic defence and security cooperation), the Political Committee (including its Sub-Committee on Transatlantic Relations), the Science and Technology Committee and the Standing Committee.

At the 21st Transatlantic Forum in Washington, D.C., from 29 November to 1 December 2021, Arta Bilali Zendeli led the delegation, with Ilija Nikolovski and Milošoski. The Assembly’s account says he spoke on Russia’s neighbourhood, especially Belarus and Ukraine, and on NATO support for democratic processes there. The same three attended joint committee meetings in Brussels on 21–23 February 2022. Discussion centred on Ukraine, described there as a direct attack on its statehood and democracy, and parliamentarians restated support for its sovereignty, territorial integrity and Euro-Atlantic course. The delegation head, not Milošoski, is named at the North [Atlantic Council](/organizations/atlantic-council) meeting.

On 5–6 April 2025 the Standing Committee met in Skopje, hosted by delegation head Dragan Kovački, days after the fifth anniversary of accession. NATO PA reporting focused on defence spending and deployments, deterrence and support for Ukraine. On the margins, Kovački and Milošoski met Representatives [Michael Turner](/people/mike-turner) and [Linda Sánchez](/people/linda-sanchez) of the United States delegation. The Assembly said they discussed security, defence-modernisation targets and a sustainable end to the war in Ukraine, and that the U.S. side restated support under the strategic partnership.

### Other delegations and observation missions

In the 2016–2020 Assembly, Milošoski was a deputy member of the delegations to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE, and deputy head of the delegation to the Parliamentary Committee on Stabilisation and Association. PACE lists him as a substitute from 22 January 2018 to 24 January 2021, in the Group of the [European People's Party](/organizations/european-people-s-party) and on the migration committee, with April 2019 votes recorded rather than reports. That term’s biography also names him president of the cooperation group with the parliament of Finland and a member of the groups for Bulgaria and Ukraine.

The [Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights](/organizations/office-for-democratic-institutions-and-human-rights) of the [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe](/organizations/organization-for-security-and-co-operation-in-europe) made him head of the mission for Belarus’s 23 September 2012 parliamentary elections. It opened in Minsk on 22 August, after a Belarusian invitation, with 11 experts and 36 long-term observers. The preliminary statement the next day, with the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, said many commitments on association, candidacy and free expression had not been respected, despite 2010–2011 changes to the electoral law. Matteo Mecacci, leading the parliamentary observers, said the election “was not competitive from the start.” Milošoski said a lack of neutrality and impartiality on the commissions “severely undermines public confidence,” and that weak counting procedures left no way to be sure votes were counted as cast. Polling was assessed more positively than the count. The final report appeared on 14 December 2012.

## Personal life

Antonio Milošoski was born on 29 January 1976 in Tetovo. The Assembly of North Macedonia lists him as Macedonian. The curriculum vitae issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during his term as minister recorded that he was married, without naming a spouse or a faith.

On 23 August 2016 the broadcaster Sitel reported that his wife Simona, an architect, had given birth to her first child, a daughter named Darija, and that he had become a father for the second time; his son David was about eight years older. The report gives Simona no surname and does not name David’s mother. In July 2018 he confirmed that he and Simona were expecting another daughter, and named David, then 10, Darija (also spelled Daria), then 2, and Mihaela, then nine months. In January 2020 Sitel reported that they were expecting a boy and listed daughters Darija, 4, Mihaela, 2, and Ilina, 1, with David, then 12. On 5 April 2020 Plusinfo carried his announcement of a son, Filip, whom he called Simona’s child and the youngest brother of Ilina, Mihaela, Darija and David; the site described the birth as his becoming a father for the fifth time.

On 30 June 2011 he resigned as foreign minister for reasons he presented as parental. He told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that the decision was “human and parental,” not political, that he had informed Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski about six months earlier, and that “a minister can be someone else, but the father of my son cannot be anyone else but me.” The dilemma, he said, had been whether to be a good minister or a better father, and his remarks then referred to one son. Balkan Insight reported the same choice as a wish “to spend more time with my family.”

On 5 April 2022 Reporter.mk quoted his account of Filip’s second birthday, marked by a family baptism at the Monastery of St. Panteleimon in Gorno Nerezi, near Skopje, and still called Filip the fifth child. The Church of Saint Panteleimon is the Byzantine church erected and painted there in 1164. A baptism at that church is the published evidence of Orthodox Christian practice in the family. Ministerial and Assembly biographies do not record a faith.

Beyond Tetovo, his father is placed in Kičevo and at a house in Ižište (Izista in some English accounts), in the municipality of Makedonski Brod. In May 2017 the Interior Ministry identified him as M.M., aged 66 and from Kičevo, when it confirmed that an explosive device had been found at the house; local reporting names him Miloš Milošoski.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/antonio-milososki