Relations between the Republic of North Macedonia (RNM) and Bulgaria have reached a new critical point.
This time, the epicenter of the diplomatic clash is not historical disputes or European integration, but the leak of confidential diplomatic information on social networks. The new scandal has prompted sharp declarations from Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski and Foreign Minister Timcho Mutsunski, who have directed the accusations directly at Bulgarian institutions.
A photo on social networks has exploded diplomacy
The fuse of the conflict was lit after a photo of an official note appeared in public space, sent by the Macedonian Embassy in Sofia to the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). With the document, Skopje officially requested the Bulgarian authorities to provide a transport corridor, police escort and special security measures for the wife and minor son of Prime Minister Mickoski, who were on vacation in the winter resort of Pamporovo.
Why did Skopje react so furiously?
The Macedonian state leadership reacted sharply, defining the incident as a serious security breach. The main reasons for the dissatisfaction of Mickoski and Mucunski are rooted in the following points:
- Threat to the security of a minor: The document contains extremely sensitive personal data. It describes in detail the exact times of crossing the state border, the license plates of the cars, the names of the bodyguards from the security service, as well as the brand and serial numbers of the weapons they carried.
- Lack of official apology: Foreign Minister Timcho Mutsunski expressed “terrible disappointment“ with Sofia's reaction. The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry categorically denied having anything to do with the distribution of the document, but Skopje is demanding an official apology and an immediate investigation.
- Accusations of “radicalization“: Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski went even further, calling the leak of information a deliberate act and “drastic radicalization“ of bilateral relations on the Bulgarian side. According to him, this is a targeted attempt to block any chance of normalizing the dialogue.
Escalation against the backdrop of already frozen relations
The new scandal is developing at a time when relations between the two neighbors were already at their most strained. Just a week before the note incident, cars owned by the Bulgarian embassy, which Sofia took as a provocation.
In the background, there remains the great political gap — the categorical refusal of the Mickoski government to implement the “French proposal“ and to include the Bulgarians in the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia, which is a mandatory condition for starting the actual negotiations for the country's membership in the European Union. Instead of dialogue, the current situation seems to finally cement the diplomatic crisis between Sofia and Skopje.
The Prime Minister of North Macedonia, Hristijan Mickoski, in an interview with MRT 1, stated, quoted by BTA, that he was surprised because it is "an unusual practice to publish diplomatic notes" and "he does not understand what they mean by announcing a diplomatic note", defining what happened as "a diplomatic scandal".
"You can hate me as much as you want and you can't sit down and talk to me and not hide your hatred and anger towards me, and maybe, through me and my family, you might want to harm me, which is not good, but there are criteria and a code of relations. You can't behave like that. These are conventions, these are international rules... The fact is that they (the Bulgarians) don't respect them. They have a ratified Convention on Human Rights, but they don't respect the verdicts of the court (the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg), but that's it. I only recognize the signs. When you have such signs, when asked if I expect an improvement (of relations between Bulgaria and North Macedonia), for relations to improve, this is impossible. But this is provoked by the other side. We continue to be available to talk, to seek a solution (to the problems)", said Mickoski, who spent over two hours answering questions on the second year of his government.
In response to a question from BTA on the subject, the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) indicated that "the MFA has not distributed a diplomatic note or other official correspondence related to the visit to Bulgaria of family members of an official representative of another country".
The information that has been circulating in the public domain in recent days refers to a verbal note dated January 6, 2026 and concerns long-past events, the MFA explained. "At this time, this information cannot be perceived as a basis for conclusions that there is an immediate threat to the security of citizens of Bulgaria or another country," the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry specified, adding that the institution "attaches exceptional importance to the protection of diplomatic correspondence and strictly observes established international rules and practices in this area."
In an interview with Channel 5 TV, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of the Republic of North Macedonia, Timcho Mucunski, stated that the response did not contain a "clear denial" that the document was leaked from the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
"The response was essentially that it happened a long time ago. It was not even a clear denial," said Mucunski, who added that "the least" he expected was "condemnation of the publication of the diplomatic note." and again drawing a parallel with Skopje's reaction to the arson of Bulgarian diplomatic cars at the beginning of last week, in front of the Bulgarian embassy in Skopje.
"I expected condemnation, to say that something was wrong, just as we condemned actions on our territory. Instead of saying that someone else did it, we said that something happened that should not have happened, we condemned the act and the institutions reacted immediately. This is how a responsible state behaves, it is a civilizational value, because anyone who works can make a mistake, but must have the capacity to apologize“, said Mucunski.
According to him, data about the wife of a prime minister of a NATO member state and about a minor were shared in the public space, as well as data on issues related to the security protocols of protected persons, which "is not a small mistake, but rather a serious omission in the security culture of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of a NATO member state" and just as the incident with the burning Bulgarian diplomatic cars is a security problem, so too are "the movement routes and security protocols of the prime minister's family".
Regarding the motive of the suspect in the arson of the two vehicles of the Bulgarian embassy in Skopje, Mucunski said that the Ministry of Interior and the National Security Agency in North Macedonia are conducting a "thorough investigation" and it will show whether what happened was "the disorganized action of one person or there is something else in the background".