Decision to Recall Ambassadors Based on Foreign Affairs Law Authentic Interpretation

The Government’s decision to recall the eight Ambassadors is based on the authentic interpretation of the Law on Foreign Affairs.

According to the Legislative Committee’s 2 December conclusions, ambassadorial candidates have to be part of a hearing process before the President signs the decree for their term to start.

“Eight Ambassadors are being recalled over non-compliance with legal procedures”, the Government said.

The Ambassadors in question are: Agneza Rusi Popovska (Bulgaria), Jakup Redzepi (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Zekjir Ramcilovic (Montenegro), Emil Krstevski (Czech Republic), Xhenk Sejfulla (Sweden), Katerina Stavrevska (UK), and Metodija Belevski (Belgium).

Belevski is also North Macedonia’s non-resident Ambassador for Luxembourg. Pajo Avirovic, Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office at Vienna, is among those covered by the recall initiatives too.

Svetlana Geleva, Permanent Representative to the CoE, too, will return to North Macedonia. However, that is related to her term ending. According to the Government, the authentic interpretation of Article 39 of the Law says the procedure to send an ambassador to start their term is not finished if there is no presentation of closing observations in Parliament.

“That means the President had no legal grounds to sign the decree, which is clearly referred to in the authentic interpretation”, it pointed out.

Regarding the nomination of four new Ambassadors, that is, Igor Nikolov (France), Dimitar Blazevski (Ukraine), Dragan Gjurcevski (Croatia), and Andrijana Cvetkovic (Japan), the Government said two were professional diplomats, one was a prominent social life figure, and one was a former professional diplomat.