Nikola Dimitrov

Nikola Dimitrov Никола Димитров
Official portrait, 2020

Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration (North Macedonia)
In office 30 August 2020 – 17 January 2022
Prime Minister	Zoran Zaev
Preceded by	Bujar Osmani
Succeeded by	Bojan Maricik
Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office 31 May 2017 – 30 August 2020
Prime Minister	Zoran Zaev Oliver Spasovski
Preceded by	Nikola Poposki
Succeeded by	Bujar Osmani
2nd Macedonian Ambassador to the United States
In office 1 December 2002 – 6 July 2006
President	Boris Trajkovski Branko Crvenkovski
Premier	Branko Crvenkovski Vlado Bučkovski
Preceded by	Ljubica Acevska
Succeeded by	Ljupčo Jordanovski

Personal details
Born	(1972-09-30) 30 September 1972 (age 51) Skopje, SR Macedonia, Yugoslavia (now North Macedonia)
Political party	Independent (1996–present)
Other political affiliations	SDSM (2020–present)
Alma mater	University of Skopje King's College, Cambridge

Nikola Dimitrov (born 30 September 1972) is a Macedonian politician and diplomat, who has served as Minister of Foreign Affairs for North Macedonia from 31 May 2017 to 30 August 2020. He also served as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2000 and Macedonian ambassador to the United States and then the Netherlands. In 2014, he turned down an appointment as Macedonia's new ambassador to Russia.

Dimitrov, together with his Greek counterpart Nikos Kotzias, signed the Prespa agreement in 2018 in efforts of resolving the Macedonia naming dispute. As a result of this agreement, his country changed its name to North Macedonia.

Career

Dimitrov started his governmental career in 1996 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an international human rights lawyer, and was promoted to Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2000. In 2002 he was named the second Macedonian ambassador to the United States, succeeding Ljubica Acevska. This made him the youngest diplomat in Washington, D.C. at the time; this was part of a trend of generational transitions in Eastern European governments: "replac[ing] the old guard with young, Western-educated technocrats".^[1]

In October 2009 he took up a new post as Macedonia's ambassador to the Netherlands.^[2] After the end of his term there in March 2013, it had originally been planned that he would take up the ambassadorship to Germany, but instead that post went to Nikola Kolev. In February 2014, it was announced that Dimitrov had turned down an appointment as Macedonia's ambassador to Moscow.^[3]

Dimitrov was Special Envoy in the talks for overcoming the name differences under the auspices of the United Nations in the period 2003-2008. From 2008 until 2011 he was a co-representative of the then Republic of Macedonia before the International Court of Justice in the case against Greece concerning the interpretation and implementation of the Interim Accord signed by both countries in 1995.^[4]

Having been involved in the diplomatic efforts for the name dispute for years, in 2017 he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in the new government led by Zoran Zaev, leader of SDSM, which pledged to solve the disputes with neighboring countries and to improve the cooperation with them. As head of the Macedonian diplomacy, Dimitrov signed the Prespa agreement on 17 June 2018 in a high-level ceremony at the Greek border village of Psarades on Lake Prespa.

He is a former member of The Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group.^[5]^[6]

Personal life

Nikola's father Dimitar Dimitrov^[7] is a refugee of the Greek Civil War.^[8] Nikola did his LL.B. at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, and his LL.M at King's College, Cambridge in the United Kingdom, where he specialised in international law. He has been married twice and has three children, two of which are 16 and one 22.

Awards and honors

EU: On September 9, 2019, Dimitrov received the "EWB Award for the Contribution to the European Integration of the Region" by portal European Western Balkans for "demonstrating extraordinary efforts in bringing his country and the region closer to the EU, promoting the spirit of cooperation and peace in regional affairs, with a special emphasis on normalization of relations between Greece and North Macedonia, as well as an exemplary support for democratic reforms and overcoming the burden of the past in the Western Balkans”.^[9]^[10]^[11]