Hristijan Mickoski

Hristijan Mickoski (Христијан Мицкоски, ; born 29 September 1977) is a Macedonian politician and the current Prime Minister of North Macedonia. He is also a university professor and president of VMRO-DPMNE. In 2016, he became the director of Power Plants of Macedonia, and in the period from 2015 to 2017, he was energy advisor to prime ministers Nikola Gruevski and Emil Dimitriev. As the sole candidate, he was elected leader of VMRO-DPMNE at the party's 16th congress in Valandovo.

Early life and career
Mickoski was born on 29 September 1977 in Skopje, then in Socialist Republic of Macedonia, part of SFR Yugoslavia. From 2016 to 2017, he was the director of Power Plants of Macedonia, the state-owned electricity producing company. He has a PhD degree. In 2011, he was a visiting professor at Vienna's Technical University. He was an associate professor at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, but in 2019 he became a regular professor. From 2015 to 2017, he was the energy advisor of prime ministers Nikola Gruevski and Emil Dimitriev.

Party leader
After the resignation of Nikola Gruevski, Mickoski became the new leader of the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party in 23 December 2017 in the party's 16th congress in Valandovo, and thus leader of the opposition in the country.

According to some party members, in his youth Hristijan Mickoski was a candidate of the Liberal Democratic Party for the presidency of the Union of students at St. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje and a fierce opponent to then ruling VMRO-DPMNE. Other members of VMRO-DPMNE accused him of not being a party member up until 2010. According to Ljubčo Georgievski, Mickoski displayed himself as a party activist firstly in 2016.

The veracity of his pro-EU and pro-NATO orientation has been met with doubt by some political observers. Mickoski has stated that he and his party are in favour of joining the European Union and NATO but not with "capitulation", i.e. rejecting the Prespa Agreement signed with Greece, which resolved the Macedonia naming dispute and secured North Macedonia's NATO accession. He and the party he leads became the main participant of the July 2022 North Macedonia protests against the French proposal for the start of the negotiation process of North Macedonia and the EU. In August 2022, Mickoski promised to leave politics forever, if Bulgarians were recognized in the country's constitution, a mandatory requirement included in the negotiating framework with the EU. In September he proposed a referendum under which the friendship treaty between Bulgaria and North Macedonia would be annulled. Mickoski has close ties with the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán and Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić,  who are providing suitable model to Western Balkans' politicians with autocratic leanings.

Prime Minister (2024–present)
After the VMRO-DPMNE gained a plurality of seats in the Assembly of North Macedonia and entered into a coalition agreement with the VLEN Coalition and ZNAM following the 2024 North Macedonian parliamentary election, Mickoski was given the mandate from the president Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova to form the next government on 6 June. In his address on 23 June 2024, before the vote for the new government in the Assembly, he promised that his government would work to reduce taxes, increase pensions, start a project with over 200 million euros for municipal projects, invest one billion euros for the economy, initiate new foreign investments for new jobs, make textbooks free for all, fight against corruption, and fight for growth of up to 5 percent of the economy. After the vote, he became the country's 13th Prime Minister.

After he referred to his country as "Macedonia" shortly before his election and described the constitutional name North Macedonia as "shameful", Greece accused the country of reneging on the Prespa Agreement and warned that its accession into the European Union was at risk of being blocked. Mickoski promised in his speech also that as long as he is prime minister, the Bulgarian minority will not be recognized and there will be no more constitutional changes, describing this EU requirement as Bulgarian dictate. On this occasion, the Bulgarian side warned that North Macedonia's intention not to abide to its international commitments is unacceptable and this is incompatible with the country's European path.

Government
Mickoski has chosen close party allies and partners as ministers, reserving fewer posts for ethnic Albanians, and selecting one vice PM with well-known links to Moscow and Belgrade - Ivan Stoilković. It includes also all four VMRO-DPMNE vice presidents, most of whom held high positions under the autocratic regime of the former PM and party leader Nikola Gruevski. The government consists mainly of VMRO-DPMNE, VLEN, ZNAM and the Democratic Party of Serbs in Macedonia members.

Personal life and views
Mickoski is married and has 2 children. Apart from his native language Macedonian, he also knows English and some Italian.

Shortly after his assumption of office, the results of the 2023 Albanian census were published, from which it appeared that there are more Bulgarians than ethnic Macedonians. Mickoski stated on that occasion, that this was the result of Bulgarian propaganda and assimilationist policy there, as well as of the carelessness of the previous government.