# Ljubomir Frčkoski

# Ljubomir Frčkoski

Ljubomir Danailov Frčkoski (Macedonian: Љубомир Данаилов Фрчкоски; also spelled Frchkoski or Frckoski) is a Macedonian professor of public international law, politician, and diplomat. Born in 1957 in Skopje, he earned a master’s degree and a doctorate from the Faculty of Sociology, Journalism and Political Science at Edvard Kardelj University in Ljubljana, later the University of Ljubljana. From 1984 to 2019 he was a full professor of international public law and international political relations at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje. In 2019 he became dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the American University of Europe in Skopje, and from September 2020 he was the university’s provost.

He assisted in drafting the first constitution of the Republic of Macedonia, now North Macedonia, in 1991. He was minister of internal affairs from 1991 to 1996 and minister of [foreign affairs](/organizations/foreign-affairs) from 1996 to 1997. The foreign-ministry term was in the government of Prime Minister [Branko Crvenkovski](/people/branko-crvenkovski); the interior post had come in an earlier Crvenkovski cabinet. From 2000 to 2004 he was counsellor to the president on constitutional and human rights issues, and in 2001 he was chief expert in the drafting of the [Ohrid Framework Agreement](/facts/ohrid-agreement), the political settlement that ended that year’s armed conflict.

On 26 January 2009 the opposition [Social Democratic Union of Macedonia](/organizations/social-democratic-union-of-macedonia) proposed him as its candidate for the 22 March presidential election, citing his experience as a former foreign minister and his newspaper columns criticizing the government of [VMRO-DPMNE](/organizations/vmro-dpmne). The ruling party’s candidate was his colleague at the Skopje law faculty, [Gjorge Ivanov](/people/gjorge-ivanov). In the first round Frčkoski received 202,691 votes (20.54 percent) and advanced to a runoff; on 5 April Ivanov won with 453,616 votes (63.14 percent) to Frčkoski’s 264,828 (36.86 percent), with turnout at 42.63 percent.

On 17 May 2022 he presented credentials to Secretary-General [António Guterres](/people/antonio-guterres) as Permanent Representative of North Macedonia to the [United Nations](/organizations/united-nations). He resigned the post on 22 August 2024, writing to President [Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova](/people/gordana-siljanovska-davkova) and notifying the foreign ministry. The appointment decree had been signed by President Stevo Pendarovski. Foreign Minister Timčo Mucunski said Frčkoski had been invited to the ministry over alleged financial irregularities at the mission, a meeting that had not taken place because of the ambassador’s health; Frčkoski said the resignation should not disrupt the mission’s technical work but could affect a project on dialogue and mediation to prevent genocide and related atrocities.

## Early life and education

### Family and schooling

Ljubomir Danailov Frčkoski (Macedonian: Љубомир Данаилов Фрчкоски; also spelled Frckoski, and Frchkoski in United Nations usage) was born on 2 December 1957 in Skopje. The city was then the capital of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, a constituent republic of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and is now the capital of North Macedonia. A United Nations biographical note issued in 2022, when he presented credentials as permanent representative, records the birth only as 1957 in Skopje. The day and month come from his curriculum vitae on the website of the Skopje Faculty of Law, which gives the date as 02.12.1957, and from the *Macedonian Encyclopedia*, which gives 2 December 1957 and cites the faculty archive.

In a May 2020 interview he said that Danailov had always been part of the surname. He described the form as an ancestor’s name used by large families from Galičnik to mark a particular line inside the wider Frčkoski family, and said that his line was the Danail line. In the same interview he said that he went regularly to Galičnik, where he had rebuilt a house from the ground up. Neither that interview nor the faculty biography names his parents, and neither names a primary or secondary school. The curriculum vitae begins the education record in 1976 and lists Macedonian as his native language, with English, Serbian, Croatian and Bulgarian as foreign languages.

### University studies and doctorate

From 1976 to 1981 he studied law at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje. The university describes itself as the first state university in what is now North Macedonia, established in 1949 with three faculties. Its Faculty of Law was set up on 3 November 1951, by decree of the government of the People’s Republic of Macedonia, as a department of the Faculty of Law and Economics, and it has operated as a separate institution since 1 July 1956. In 2001, after his student years, the faculty council renamed it the Iustinianus Primus Faculty of Law. He completed the degree in 1981; the English curriculum vitae records the qualification as that of a graduated lawyer.

He took a master’s degree in law at the same faculty. The curriculum vitae dates the studies to 1981–1986 and the degree to 1986, and it does not give the title of the thesis. A United Nations biographical note of 2022 states instead that he earned both a master’s degree and a doctoral degree from the Faculty of Sociology, Journalism and Political Science at Edvard Kardelj University in Ljubljana. The faculty’s own biography, and the *Macedonian Encyclopedia* entry based on the faculty archive, place the master’s degree in Skopje and only the doctorate in Ljubljana.

Doctoral study is dated 1986–1989 at the Faculty of Sociology, Journalism and Political Sciences of the University “Edvard Kardelj” in Ljubljana, then in the Socialist Republic of Slovenia. The University of Ljubljana archive states that the university was named Univerza Edvarda Kardelja v Ljubljani from 1979 to 1990, after the Slovene politician Edvard Kardelj, and returned to the name University of Ljubljana in 1990. The faculty he attended had been incorporated in 1970 as the Faculty of Sociology, Political Sciences and Journalism and was renamed the Faculty of Social Sciences in 1991. In 1989 he received the degree of doctor of political sciences. The curriculum vitae does not record the dissertation title. Among works it lists from those years are a 1989 monograph, *Essays on [Social Democracy](/organizations/social-democracy)* (*Есеи за социјалдемократијата*, Magazin 21, Skopje), and a 1992 monograph, *Theories of Democracy* (*Теории за демократијата*), issued by the Third Programme of Macedonian Radio; the English text of the same curriculum vitae renders the latter title *Theory of Democracy*.

## Academic career

### Faculty of Law in Skopje

Frčkoski’s university teaching was based at the Faculty of Law in Skopje, a unit of Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje that later took the name “Iustinianus Primus.” A profile on the faculty site in 2011 states that from 1984 to 1990 he held, in succession, the posts of assistant, docent and professor in international law and the theory of international relations. The same profile records a law degree from that faculty in 1981, a master’s degree in law there in 1986, and a 1989 doctorate in political science from the Faculty of Sociology, Journalism and Political Science at Edvard Kardelj University in Ljubljana, the institution that is now the University of Ljubljana.

After government office from 1990 to 1997 he returned, on that profile, as a professor of international law and international relations; a 2008 English faculty page already listed him among the full-time professors. A United Nations biographical note of 17 May 2022, drawn from information supplied through the Protocol and Liaison Service, instead describes 1984–2019 as one continuous full professorship in international public law and international political relations, and it places both postgraduate degrees in Ljubljana.

The 2008 profile also lists him as a visiting professor at the International University Institute for European Studies in Italy and as a member of the scientific committee of the Institute of International Sociology in Gorizia, associated there with the University of Trieste. From 15 May to 3 June 2018 the Skopje faculty reported that he was a visiting professor at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration in Moscow, giving a series of lectures. In January 2019 Sefer Canoski, owner and general manager of the private FON University, announced that Frčkoski was leaving “Iustinianus Primus” after more than three decades and would, from 1 March, be dean of FON’s faculty of law and political sciences.

### Later university posts

The United Nations note records the 2019 appointment as dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the American University of Europe in Skopje. On 21 August 2020 the Skopje outlet *Libertas* reported his election as acting rector of the American University of Europe–FON, succeeding Nano Ružin, and described him as dean of law and political sciences until then. The UN note states that he had served as provost of the American University of Europe in Skopje since September 2020.

### Research themes

Faculty bibliographies and later course lists cluster his writing on public international law, the international law of human rights, democratic theory, and identity conflict. *International Public Law* (*Меѓународно јавно право*) is entered as a Fitko (Skopje) book of 1991 and a Tabernakul (Skopje) book of 1994. A 2012 edition from Magor, co-authored with Sašo Georgievski and Tatjana Petruševska, is required reading for the faculty’s international-law course in a 2022 accreditation file. *International Law of Human Rights* (*Меѓународно право за правата на човекот*) is listed as a 2001 Open Society Institute–Macedonia book and as a second, supplemented Magor edition of 2005; the TRI publishing centre later issued an edition with ISBN 9786082307428.

On political theory, the faculty bibliography includes the 1989 monograph *Essays on Social Democracy* (*Есеи за социјалдемократијата*), from Magazin 21 in Skopje, and *Theories of Democracy* (*Теории за демократијата*), published in 1992 by the Third Programme of Macedonian Radio. *Contemporary Political Theories* (*Современи политички теории*, 2003), co-authored with Gjorge Ivanov, appears in the 2008 bibliography as a Forum (Skopje) textbook and in the 2022 accreditation file as mandatory literature, with the Faculty of Law named in the imprint field.

On divided societies, the bibliography includes *The Model of Inter-ethnic Relations in the Republic of Macedonia (1990–1997)* (Krug, 1999) and the chapter “Macedonia and the Region” in Chaillot Paper 46, *The Southern Balkans: Perspectives from the Region* (Western European Union Institute for Security Studies, 2 April 2001). *Negotiation in Identity Conflicts* appeared from Templum in Skopje in 2007, with a 2012 Magor edition on the faculty reading list, and in September 2025 Tri issued an English edition under that title.

*Restless Nationalism* (*Неспокоен национализам*), published by Kultura in Skopje in 2016, is a bilingual book whose English contents move from Macedonian independence and the name dispute with Greece to definitions of the nation and of nationalism. An excerpt circulated by the Library of Social Science, under the heading “Enjoying the Nation,” places that discussion in the psychoanalytic vocabulary of Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek. Kultura also published his *Human Rights and Psychoanalysis* in 2020, a 153-page book (barcode 9786082620572). A faculty accreditation file lists a 2017–2019 project, “Critical Re-examination of Law,” under Frčkoski, Irena Rajchinovska Pandeva and Viki Mladenova, run by the Faculty of Law with the [Friedrich Ebert Foundation](/organizations/friedrich-ebert-foundation) in Skopje.

## Role in the 1991 Constitution

### Drafting and adoption

As the Republic of Macedonia left Yugoslavia, a small expert group prepared the working text of the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia. A United Nations biographical note records that Ljubomir Frčkoski, then a professor of public international law at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, assisted in the drafting. He was not the sole author. Vlado Popovski later said that President [Kiro Gligorov](/people/kiro-gligorov) and Prime Minister [Nikola Kljusev](/people/nikola-kljusev) wanted a constitution within six months. The constitutional-law professor Evgenij Dimitrov declined, calling the deadline impossible. Frčkoski then brought in Popovski, and with Laze Kitanovski they finished a working text on 30 April 1991, drawn from several constitutions and their view of the state.

The draft went to Gligorov, Kljusev and [Stojan Andov](/people/stojan-andov), president of the Assembly. Gligorov opened the procedure on 6 May. Popovski recalled that he and Frčkoski, nominated by the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia, were members of the Constitutional Commission Andov chaired, but resigned so that they could defend the presidential proposal before it. The Assembly, by a two-thirds majority, went on to a draft, public comment and a final proposal. Kitanovski spoke in the chamber for the expert group, which Gligorov later credited with knowledge of European constitutions.

On 17 November 1991 the Assembly adopted the constitution by 92 votes. The promulgation decision, No. 08-4642/1, signed by Andov, and the Constitutional Law on implementation each passed with 96 votes. The law applies the constitution from promulgation unless a provision is deferred, and the text appeared in the *Official Gazette of the Republic of Macedonia*, No. 52, on 22 November 1991. Popovski has said that deputies from the Albanian parties did not vote for it. Zhidas Daskalovski writes that the Party for Democratic Prosperity–[National Democratic Party](/organizations/national-democratic-party) boycotted the special session in protest at the preamble.

### Civic concept and later assessment

The enacted text combined a civic account of sovereignty with a national definition of the state. The preamble invokes the heritage of the Macedonian people, the Kruševo Republic, the Anti-Fascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia, continuity within federal Yugoslavia, and the [referendum of 8 September 1991](/facts/1991-macedonian-independence-referendum). It also states, as a historical fact, that Macedonia is a national state of the Macedonian people, in which full civic equality and permanent coexistence are secured for Albanians, Turks, Vlachs, Roma and other nationalities, and it aims at a sovereign, independent, civic and democratic state. Article 2 vests sovereignty in the citizens. Macedonian in Cyrillic is the official language, with another nationality’s language in local official use where its members are a majority or a considerable number. Further clauses provide equality regardless of national origin, protection of the nationalities’ identity, including mother-tongue schooling, and a Council for Inter-Ethnic Relations under Article 78. [Article 19](/organizations/article-19) names the Macedonian Orthodox Church and then other religious communities and groups, separate from the state and equal before the law.

Popovski described the debate as three lines: a democratic constitution built on human rights; a national constitution speaking only of the Macedonian nation, with others as minorities; and the Albanian parties’ demand that the republic also be a state of the Albanians and the Turks. He said the drafters sought a democratic state of all citizens, and that Albanian deputies withheld their votes once their aims were read as a separate statehood inside the state. Daskalovski argues that Albanians in Macedonia saw a demotion from the socialist preamble, which had named the Macedonian people together with the Albanian and Turkish minorities. He writes that referendum turnout was about 72 percent and that ethnic Albanians most likely abstained at their parties’ urging, and he treats the 1991 constitution as a standing dispute over the character of the state.

The Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on Yugoslavia, chaired, as Daskalovski notes, by [Robert Badinter](/people/robert-badinter), examined the 17 November constitution and amendments of 6 January 1992. Opinion No. 6, of 11 January 1992, held that the republic satisfied the European Community’s recognition guidelines and its Declaration on Yugoslavia. It recorded the rights provisions and the January amendments renouncing territorial claims and interference in neighbouring states. Daskalovski’s 2004 study calls the dispute over the state’s character the main obstacle to democratic consolidation until the amendments that followed the 2001 Ohrid Framework Agreement. Popovski later called it an excellent civic, democratic and European text, and the Ohrid amendments the one genuine reform, a standard he said nationalism had left out in 1991.

## Minister of the Interior

### Appointment and policing

The Ministry of Internal Affairs records Ljubomir Frčkoski as minister of internal affairs of the Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) from 10 January 1992 to 23 February 1996. He succeeded Jordan Mijalkov, whom the ministry lists as the first interior minister of the independent republic, from 20 March 1991 until that date. A United Nations biographical note of 2022 dates the office more broadly, from 1991 to 1996.

The post covered policing while the state tried to stay clear of the [Yugoslav wars](/facts/yugoslav-wars). After President Kiro Gligorov asked for observers in November 1992, Security Council resolution 795 of 11 December authorized a preventive force in Skopje—up to 700 troops, 35 military observers and 26 civilian police monitors—to watch the borders with Albania and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. On 31 March 1995 that Macedonia command became the United Nations Preventive Deployment Force, with the same mandate.

In September 1993 [Amnesty International](/organizations/amnesty-international) reported police round-ups around Tetovo of ethnic Albanians believed to be Yugoslav citizens from Kosovo, some of whom had already been returned. Many were young men of military age who may have fled conscription. Citing ill-treatment of ethnic Albanians by police in Kosovo, Amnesty appealed to Gligorov and Frčkoski against any return without an individual examination, and noted that Macedonia had given temporary protection to about 30,000 refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina.

[Human Rights Watch](/organizations/human-rights-watch), after a 1995 mission, described excessive force during arrests and short-term detention. Frčkoski said that in 1994–1995 officers had "overstepped their duties" in 54 cases and that each responsible officer lost his job. At clashes on 17 February 1995 over an Albanian-language university near Tetovo, Abduselam Emini was shot dead and dozens of people were injured. OSCE observers found that the fatal bullet came from a police rifle but was probably not deliberate; Frčkoski said he had "no clear evidence of excessive violence," while saying three policemen had been removed. He put ethnic Albanians at about 4.5 percent of the police, up from 1.7 percent in 1992, against a stated aim of 15 to 20 percent minorities in the ministry. The opposition party VMRO-DPMNE complained of phone-tapping and police harassment; Human Rights Watch recorded the complaint and did not confirm a surveillance program.

### Intelligence Agency

On 29 March 1995 the Assembly adopted two laws that Gligorov and Assembly president Stojan Andov proclaimed in the Official Gazette of 6 April. The Law on Internal Affairs placed a Directorate for Security and Counterintelligence inside the ministry, charged with protection against espionage, terrorism and other violent threats to the constitutional order, and against more serious organized crime. Its director was appointed by the government, on the interior minister's proposal, for four years, and answered to the minister and the government. The Law on the Intelligence Agency, published the same day, created a separate state body to collect and analyze information on security, defense and economic and political interests, and to report to the president, the government and other organs. The president appointed its director for four years; the director was accountable to the president, and the government could also require an accounting. Assembly commissions were to oversee both bodies.

### Assassination attempt on Kiro Gligorov

At about 9:30 a.m. on 3 October 1995 a remote-controlled bomb in a parked car exploded beside Gligorov's limousine on Macedonia Street in central Skopje, opposite the Bristol Hotel. Driver Aleksandar Spirovski and passer-by Risto Hadzimanov were killed, and a bodyguard was injured. Diplomats told The [New York](/organizations/new-york) Times that shrapnel had fractured Gligorov's skull; he was operated on that evening, lost an eye, and resumed office about four months later.

The device was in the rear of a Citroën Ami 8, chosen so its thin body would form shrapnel, and held about one kilogram of plastic explosive made for the former [Yugoslav People's Army](/organizations/yugoslav-people-s-army). Authorities called the attempt professional and said American, German and British services had assisted. Checks covered more than 30,000 vehicles, 15,000 premises and 188,000 identities; those questioned were released, and nobody was charged. Police sealed the borders that day, and diplomats said two men trying to flee were arrested. No group claimed responsibility. The bombing followed a meeting the previous day between Gligorov and Serbian president Slobodan Milošević, and Gligorov's acceptance of a plan to end a Greek embargo linked to the state's name and symbols.

The case remains open at the prosecution and the Interior Ministry, with no perpetrator identified. Theories circulated at the time, none supported by evidence made public, named Milošević, Bulgarian intelligence, an internal struggle, organized crime, nationalists, a clandestine ethnic Albanian group, or diaspora militants. Pavle Trajanov, then a state adviser in the ministry and later interior minister, has said the inquiry did not fully test inside help, including links between Serbian and Macedonian security structures, and has cited the earlier theft of 12 matching remote detonators from Defense Ministry stores. In October 2008 Frčkoski wrote in *Dnevnik* that a former police employee claimed secret-police colleagues were involved and that he, rather than a German tourist as police had said, photographed the car on their orders. After both men were questioned, state prosecutor Ljupco Svrgovski said there were no grounds for a new investigation. Balkan Insight reported in 2025 that no further lead had appeared, and Gligorov did not name suspects.

## Minister of Foreign Affairs

### Tenure and regional diplomacy

Ljubomir Frčkoski was minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) from 23 February 1996 to 29 May 1997, succeeding Stevo Crvenkovski and preceding Blagoja Handžiski in the government of Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski. He left the interior ministry, held since December 1991, the same day. About fifteen months later Handžiski, defence minister since December 1994, took foreign affairs; the lists give no reason.

The main bilateral act was the Agreement on the Regulation of Relations and Promotion of Cooperation with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, signed in Belgrade on 8 April 1996 by Frčkoski and federal foreign minister [Milan Milutinović](/people/milan-milutinovic) and sent to the Security Council as S/1996/291. The parties agreed to respect each other as independent states within their international borders, to refrain from the threat or use of force, and to open diplomatic relations at ambassadorial level. Each accepted the other’s account of state continuity; succession claims from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia were deferred; minority rights were to meet “the highest international standards”; and a joint commission was to describe the common border. The *Irish Times* reported that the European Union would not fully recognize Yugoslavia unless Belgrade normalized relations with Macedonia, and that Bulgaria had recognized independence without accepting a distinct Slav Macedonian nationality or language.

On 18 November 1996 Frčkoski asked the Secretary-General, in a letter circulated as S/1996/983, to keep the United Nations Preventive Deployment Force past 30 November. He cited implementation of the Dayton Agreement, limited defence capacity, the unfinished border with Yugoslavia, and the risk that tension in Kosovo could spread. Resolution 1082 (1996), adopted on 27 November by 14 votes to none with Russia abstaining, extended the mandate to 31 May 1997, cut the military component by 300 by 30 April 1997, and called for the 8 April agreement to be carried out, especially the border demarcation.

On 12 June 1996, after approval of an Individual Partnership Programme under NATO’s [Partnership for Peace](/organizations/partnership-for-peace), he told the North [Atlantic Council](/organizations/atlantic-council) that Macedonia and Albania “could and should become priority candidates” for enlargement. On 11 December he told the North Atlantic Cooperation Council that NATO was the priority for regional stability while “not minimizing” the [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe](/organizations/organization-for-security-and-co-operation-in-europe), whose Lisbon documents he said Skopje supported.

### Name dispute and European institutions

The dispute with Greece was already under an interim settlement, and it was not closed during this tenure. On 13 September 1995 Stevo Crvenkovski and Greek foreign minister [Karolos Papoulias](/people/karolos-papoulias) signed the Interim Accord in New York, witnessed by United Nations envoy [Cyrus Vance](/people/cyrus-vance); it entered into force on 13 October 1995. Greece recognized the other party under the provisional designation “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,” both sides confirmed the existing frontier, and they agreed to continue talks under the Secretary-General on the difference in Security Council resolutions 817 (1993) and 845 (1993). Greece also undertook not to block membership of organizations to which it belonged if that reference was used. Frčkoski was not a signatory; Greece’s 1994 trade embargo had already been lifted.

United Nations paperwork kept the interim name even where Skopje used its constitutional name: the account of resolution 1082 and the note to Frčkoski’s letter said “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,” while the letter said “Republic of Macedonia.” A European Community cooperation package initialled in June 1996 used the same provisional reference. On 29 April 1997 in Luxembourg, Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski signed an exchange of letters on a Cooperation Agreement, with a Financial Protocol and a Transport Agreement; Frčkoski attended with EU foreign ministers and Commissioner Hans van den Broek. It included a clause on human rights and democratic principles, a political dialogue, ECU 20 million in budgetary funds for 1997–2000, and up to ECU 150 million in [European Investment Bank](/organizations/european-investment-bank) loans. The name difference was still open when he left office the following month.

## Adviser and the Ohrid Framework Agreement

### Service under Boris Trajkovski

From 2000 to 2004 Ljubomir Frčkoski was counsellor to [Boris Trajkovski](/people/boris-trajkovski), president of the Republic of Macedonia, on constitutional and human rights issues. A curriculum vitae on his law-faculty page also lists him, for 2000–2001, as executive director of the Foundation for Strategic Analyses named for former president Kiro Gligorov. The United Nations biographical note issued when he later presented credentials, drawn from information supplied for that purpose, calls him chief expert in the drafting of the Ohrid Framework Agreement in 2001. A 2002 reconstruction by Vasko Popetrevski and Veton Latifi, republished by the Conflict Studies Research Centre, identifies him more narrowly as a member of Trajkovski’s expert team during the talks. He also sat on the [Council of Europe](/organizations/council-of-europe)’s [European Commission](/organizations/european-commission) against Racism and Intolerance for “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”: its 2002 report lists him, and its 2007 report records that his term expired on 1 January 2008.

### Negotiations and constitutional amendments

In February 2001 the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army began fighting government forces; months of party talks then produced a framework concluded at Ohrid and signed in Skopje on 13 August 2001.

*Signing of the Ohrid Framework Agreement in Skopje on 13 August 2001.*

Human Rights Watch found serious violations by both government forces and the NLA, including indiscriminate shelling, torture, abductions and attacks on civilians, and described the August text as a peace agreement under which the NLA would demobilize and hand weapons to NATO. Ulf Brunnbauer estimated more than 200 casualties, including more than sixty Macedonian soldiers and police, and more than 100,000 people exiled or displaced. The NLA was not itself at the table. Popetrevski and Latifi write that talks in Skopje stalled over the state-level status of Albanian and over policing; after [Javier Solana](/people/javier-solana), George Robertson and [Mircea Geoana](/people/mircea-geoana) intervened on 26 July, the discussions moved to Ohrid on 28 July and continued until the text was initialled on 9 August, while fighting, including an ambush near Karpalak, still threatened them. They present James W. Pardew, for the United States, and [François Léotard](/people/francois-leotard), for the European Union, as the facilitators without whom Albanian demands and the Macedonian parties’ refusal of a territorial settlement would probably not have been bridged; NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe were also engaged around the talks.

The authentic English text says the agreement was concluded under Trajkovski’s auspices and signed in Skopje on 13 August by Trajkovski, [Ljubčo Georgievski](/people/ljubco-georgievski) of VMRO-DPMNE, Branko Crvenkovski of the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia, Arben Xhaferi of the [Democratic Party of Albanians](/organizations/democratic-party-of-albanians) and Imer Imeri of the Party for Democratic Prosperity, witnessed by Léotard and Pardew. It rejects violence, treats sovereignty, territorial integrity and the unitary character of the state as inviolable, and states that there are no territorial solutions to ethnic issues. In return it calls for a law substantially enlarging municipal powers; equitable representation of communities in public bodies, especially the police; and official use, beside Macedonian, of any other language spoken by at least 20 percent of the population, including in municipalities where a community reaches that share. Laws on culture, language, education, personal documents, symbols, local finances, local elections, Skopje and municipal boundaries require a majority that includes a majority of representatives of non-majority communities; specified constitutional amendments and the local-self-government law require two-thirds with the same community majority, a double majority later called the Badinter majority.

The Assembly adopted the 15 amendments only on 16 November 2001, by 94 votes to 14, after delays and nationalist disruption; NATO had by then collected about 4,000 weapons from the NLA. Brunnbauer argued that many ethnic Macedonians read the civic redrafting of the preamble and the new community rights as a threat to a contested national identity. The revised Law on Local Self-Government followed on 24 January 2002. On the tenth anniversary Frčkoski, whom Balkan Insight described as one of the experts who prepared the agreement, argued that it had answered a demand for greater Albanian rights while keeping the state unitary. The same report quoted the [International Crisis Group](/organizations/international-crisis-group) warning that the country was more stable and inclusive, but that party and ethnic tensions, nationalism and slow decentralisation were eroding the settlement. In a 2021 [Deutsche Welle](/organizations/deutsche-welle) interview he called the text an internal political act with legal provisions, not an international treaty or a peace treaty, and said that language rules and double-majority voting had worked while partisan capture of recruitment into the administration had not.

## 2009 presidential candidacy

### Nomination and campaign

Incumbent president Branko Crvenkovski told the Skopje daily *Dnevnik* in July 2008 that he would not run again. He called the decision final, citing disagreement with Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and unwillingness to cohabit with a policy he said would have serious long-term consequences. On 26 January 2009 the opposition Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) proposed Ljubomir Frčkoski, a law professor and former interior and foreign minister known for columns criticizing the government, for the 22 March presidential election in the Republic of Macedonia (since 2019, North Macedonia). Acting party president [Zoran Zaev](/people/zoran-zaev) said SDSM wanted “a candidate with political attitude and experience”; a convention later that day was to confirm the choice. The smaller New Social Democratic Party also backed him. The previous evening the ruling VMRO-DPMNE had nominated Gjorge Ivanov, a law-faculty colleague making his first run for office. SDSM had first proposed diplomat Srgjan Kerim as a joint non-partisan candidate; VMRO-DPMNE refused, and Kerim withdrew.

The vote was held with municipal elections. A January 2009 constitutional amendment lowered the second-round turnout requirement from 50 percent of registered voters to 40 percent. A first-round win required a majority of all registered voters; otherwise the top two met again within two weeks. Besides Frčkoski and Ivanov, the State Election Commission registered Imer Selmani ([New Democracy](/organizations/new-democracy)), Mirushe Hoxha (Democratic Party of Albanians), Nano Ružin ([Liberal Democratic Party](/organizations/liberal-democratic-party)), the independent [Ljube Boškoski](/people/ljube-boskoski) and Agron Buxhaku of the [Democratic Union for Integration](/organizations/democratic-union-for-integration).

The official campaign ran from 2 March until midnight on 20 March. Accession to the European Union and NATO, and the Macedonia naming dispute with Greece, dominated nationally, though observers found local races drew more attention and the second round was lower-key. Greece had blocked a NATO invitation at the April 2008 Bucharest summit over the name. Frčkoski said the government was not seriously trying to end the dispute, that the resulting isolation hurt investment, and that he would take a more pragmatic line, including identity guarantees and a geographical qualifier such as “Republic of Northern Macedonia,” as suggested by the International Crisis Group. He called the government “the worst Macedonian political nomenclature since its independence.” Ivanov denied that the country was isolated. VMRO-DPMNE’s youth wing attacked columns in which he had called party figures “rednecks” and “morons”; his camp called Ivanov a “puppet” of Gruevski.

### Results and assessments

The register listed 1,792,082 voters. On 22 March, 1,019,268 people voted (56.88 percent). Of 986,882 valid ballots, Ivanov received 345,850 (35.04 percent) and Frčkoski 202,691 (20.54 percent). Selmani took 147,547 (14.95 percent), Boškoski 146,878 (14.88 percent), Buxhaku 73,629 (7.46 percent), Ružin 40,042 (4.06 percent) and Hoxha 30,225 (3.06 percent), with 32,386 invalid ballots. Neither had a majority of registered voters, so they met again on 5 April. Final first-round figures came on 3 April.

On 5 April, 764,029 voters took part (42.63 percent), above the 40 percent threshold. Ivanov won 453,616 valid votes (63.14 percent) to Frčkoski’s 264,828 (36.86 percent). The commission protocol reproduced by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights listed 718,450 valid ballots and 45,589 invalid ballots, 5.96 percent of votes cast against 3.18 percent in the first round, and noted that the valid ballots alone cleared 40 percent. It declared Ivanov president-elect; preliminary results followed on 6 April and final results on 13 April. Frčkoski conceded, saying “now God help Macedonia.” SDSM called the poll peaceful but “far from democratic,” alleging pressure on voters by the ruling party.

An observation mission led by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe found that both rounds met most OSCE commitments and other international standards: polling days were peaceful, the police presence discreet, campaign language mostly measured and administration generally professional. It also reported numerous credible allegations of intimidation, especially threats to public employees’ jobs, mostly attributed to state officials and governing-party activists. Voting was assessed more positively in the second round. With only ethnic Macedonian candidates left, presidential turnout collapsed in some predominantly ethnic Albanian municipalities even where mayoral voting continued: 1.6 percent in Želino against 35.2 percent in the mayoral race, and 2.51 percent in Lipkovo against 40.2 percent, despite a VMRO-DPMNE–Democratic Union for Integration agreement on mutual support. Invalid ballots were especially numerous in ethnic Albanian areas.

## Public commentary and controversies

### Columns and political criticism

Frčkoski was a longstanding columnist for the Skopje daily *Dnevnik*, as he told the [Constitutional Court](/organizations/constitutional-court), and a harsh critic, in contemporaneous reporting, of Nikola Gruevski and VMRO-DPMNE. In *Dnevnik* he blamed Gruevski, finance minister under Ljubčo Georgievski, for harmful contracts in the sale of the OKTA refinery to Hellenic Petroleum, which critics said gave the buyers a monopoly and a guaranteed state purchase; he said the column was meant to clarify politicians’ roles.

In April 2015 he told Al Jazeera Balkans that Macedonia faced its greatest crisis since independence: authoritarian power, in his words, backed by a “criminal top” of the ruling party, a clientele of no more than 150,000 voters, and blackmail he tied to secret recordings of 26,000 citizens. He urged outside pressure, a transitional government and a special court.

On 10 February 2026, with VMRO-DPMNE back in office, Libertas published “The eternal past and VMRO-DPMNE.” He wrote that the party stood in no constitutive act of the contemporary Macedonian state and had a reason to exist only by calling those acts betrayals, so that Kiro Gligorov, Boris Trajkovski and Zoran Zaev had to be cast as “criminal minds,” and likened the interior ministry under the government to “a gang with a private army.”

### Lustration and court cases

In December 2008 a court found the OKTA column had discredited Gruevski and ordered about 32,000 euros in damages.

A further case concerned the *Dnevnik* column of 20 January 2009, “Frankfurt School vis-à-vis Demir Hisar School,” written while Frčkoski was a presidential candidate and directed at Gjorge Ivanov, the VMRO-DPMNE nominee. The private prosecutor was Svetomir Škariḱ, a retired law professor who became Ivanov’s adviser. The column said Ivanov “owed” Frčkoski and Professor Micajkov for a faculty post and that Škariḱ had been “bloodthirstily against” the appointment. On 1 October 2010 the Skopje I Basic Court (K.br.991/09) convicted Frčkoski of libel and insult and fined him 50 daily amounts totalling 500 euros (30,750 denars), with an excerpt to run in *Dnevnik*; a claim for 25,000 euros was left open. The courts held that Škariḱ had not attended the council that elected Ivanov, so the statement was untrue, and that “Demir Hisar school” meant the psychiatric hospital in Demir Hisar. Frčkoski said he had meant a provincial school, not the hospital. The Court of Appeal confirmed the conviction on 7 March 2011 (KZ.br.332/11), and on 24 November 2011 the Constitutional Court rejected application U.no.147/2011 as a proportionate limit on expression.

In December 2011 the Lustration Commission opened a check on surveillance orders he issued as interior minister from 1992 to 1996 under Branko Crvenkovski, the first such look at a senior police official rather than a suspected informant under the 2008 law on communist-era collaborators. Frčkoski, the 2009 presidential runner-up backed by Crvenkovski’s Social Democratic Union of Macedonia, called it a politically motivated “witch hunt” aimed only at discrediting him, and said the orders were part of a minister’s job. Member Cedomir Damjanovski said people were being hurriedly named informants or “givers of orders”; chairman Tome Adžiev said the law was being followed.

On 27 May 2013 the commission voted to lustrate him for allegedly ordering surveillance for ideological and political reasons, which meant a published dossier and a ban on public office. Damjanovski, outvoted, said the law covered collaborators and informants, not “givers of orders,” and that the file was not fully examined. Frčkoski said he would ignore the finding; the government denied using lustration against critics. The U.S. State Department’s 2012 report, quoted by Balkan Insight, said the government had “used lustration as a means of attacking political opponents and disloyal former associates,” and that a June 2012 replacement law restored provisions the Constitutional Court had removed.

On 31 May 2013 the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights of the Republic of North Macedonia, whose executive board included Frčkoski, called the step the “utmost distortion” of the process and an instrument of the governing parties, contrary to the constitution, to rulings limiting the law after 1991, to a 2012 Venice Commission opinion and to Council of Europe Resolution 1096 (1996). It said the procedure allowed no hearing and that, failing protection of privacy by the Administrative Court, it would apply to the [European Court of Human Rights](/organizations/justice-ecthr). No report shows that his dossier was published or a ban enforced. In 2016 the Administrative Court annulled 17 commission decisions for denying a hearing and the documents. Those rulings were not identified as Frčkoski’s. The process was wound up in 2016 after criticism from Brussels, though penalties on more than 200 people remained.

### Later disputes

On 3 March 2017 three hooded men approached Frčkoski in the car park of the law faculty at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje. The rectorate reported an attack on a professor. The Interior Ministry said that at about 14:15 they asked “How are you not ashamed,” one filmed him, and when he replied “Why should I be ashamed” he struck that man; the three left toward Goce Delčev Boulevard, and the ministry did not say if they were identified.

In August 2024 he resigned as ambassador to the United Nations after the foreign minister in the government of [Hristijan Mickoski](/people/hristijan-mickoski) summoned him over financial irregularities the ministry said it had found at the New York mission. Mickoski said ambassadorial posts were being reviewed because the service had been privatised and partisanised. The financial case is treated with his United Nations posting.

## Permanent Representative to the United Nations

### Appointment and work in New York

Ljubomir Danailov Frčkoski was appointed in 2022 as North Macedonia's ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations in New York by a decree of President Stevo Pendarovski. On 17 May 2022 he presented his credentials to Secretary-General António Guterres. A report two days later said Frčkoski briefed Guterres on foreign-policy priorities and on European Union integration after the [Prespa Agreement](/facts/prespa-agreement), and that Guterres credited the use of dialogue and compromise on bilateral disputes, singled out Prespa, and noted cooperation with UN bodies.

While he was in New York, North Macedonia co-sponsored the General Assembly resolution designating 11 July as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica. Foreign Minister [Bujar Osmani](/people/bujar-osmani) announced that co-sponsorship on 15 April 2024, alongside the United States, Germany and others. The Assembly adopted the text, sponsored by Germany and Rwanda, on 23 May 2024 by 84 votes to 19, with 68 abstentions; it condemns denial of the genocide and asks the Secretary-General for an outreach programme before the 30th anniversary. On 11 July 2024 Frčkoski told Al Jazeera Balkans that North Macedonia had co-sponsored the resolution enthusiastically, as policy toward the wars after Yugoslavia's breakup and as an ethical response to the genocide. He called opposition to it, including what he said was pressure from Serbian President [Aleksandar Vučić](/people/aleksandar-vucic) on Skopje, scandalous, and said the text assigned neither collective guilt nor reparations.

He wrote the 2024 preface to *Promoting Dialogue and Mediation to Prevent Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity*, issued by the UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. He describes the paper as growing out of his collaboration with that office while ambassador; its twelve recommendations draw on expert meetings and a November 2024 workshop in Kigali. The Special Adviser's foreword presents the project as work her office carried out in 2024.

### Resignation and financial allegations

The posting ended after a change of government. Foreign Minister Timčo Mucunski said Frčkoski had been invited to the ministry over alleged financial irregularities at the mission, and that the meeting had not been held because of the ambassador's health. On 22 August 2024 Frčkoski sent a written resignation to President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova and notified the Foreign Ministry; her office confirmed to the Media Information Agency that the letter had been received. He told the Libertas website, as reported by the agency, that the resignation should not affect the mission's technical work but might affect the dialogue-and-mediation project. Mucunski later said Frčkoski had not come for consultations and was no longer UN ambassador by his own choice.

On 14 December 2024 Mucunski said an internal review had produced what he called serious indications of misuse of budget funds and six-figure damage in euros. He would not give an exact figure while the procedure continued, and said the ministry would inform the judicial authorities, whose further action was outside its control.

On 12 May 2025 the Interior Ministry's financial-crime unit filed a criminal complaint with the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office in Skopje against Frčkoski and three other Skopje residents—named in reports as Katina Georgieva, Jon Ivanovski and Ivana Spikovska—for abuse of official position and authority under Article 353 of the Criminal Code. The complaint covers April 2022 to October 2024, when the ministry's account describes him as head of the mission. As quoted from that account, 3,998,721.72 US dollars from the joint sale of a succession property of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in New York entered the mission account; 3,940,000 dollars was sent to the state budget, and the remaining 58,721.72 dollars was allegedly spent against a Foreign Ministry instruction, a Finance Ministry opinion, and financial and procurement rules. Other alleged items—travel advances, an under-returned residence deposit, telephone and representation costs, an uncleared cash balance, and a vehicle repair without approval—were put at a further 57,855.18 dollars, for a stated total of 116,576.90 dollars. The three others were alleged to have paid out money and not recorded the irregularities. The prosecutor's office said on 14 May 2025 that it had received the complaint and was acting on it. These are allegations; they are not a finding of guilt.

Frčkoski called it shameful, banal and full of inaccuracies, and said it was meant to pressure him over his criticism of the government. He said the foreign-affairs law lets an ambassador reallocate mission funds, and that the advances and extraordinary tickets had been repaid. On the succession money, he said New York authorities required the former republics to hold part of the proceeds as a tax guarantee until the buyer paid, that North Macedonia did the same, and that the full sum reached the budget about a year later.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/ljubomir-frckoski