First premiership (2017–2020) On 31 May 2017 the Macedonian parliament confirmed Zaev as the new prime minister, with 62 out of 120 MPs voting in favor. The voting ended months of political uncertainty. During his speech, Zaev presented the program of the new government, saying that joining
NATO and the
EU would be its priority in the following years. He also promised economic growth and an end to corruption by announcing a "responsible, reformist and European government". Some newspapers interpreted some of Zaev's statements for the newspapers BGNES and Kurir as a claim asserting the Macedonians as one people with the Bulgarians or the Serbs. What Zaev was recorded as saying on the original video interview of the Bulgarian newspaper
BGNES was "I want to send a message to all the citizens of Bulgaria. We are brotherly people, the same folk." He stated during an interview for the Serbian newspaper
Kurir, "The Serbs and the Macedonians are brotherly people" and "Nobody asked Zoran Zaev to do anything against Macedonians, against Serbs, against any ethnic community, or against any of our neighbors. We heard allegations asserting Zaev as condemning Serbia for a genocide. It's for me the same my people."
Negotiations with Bulgaria for a treaty for friendship and cooperation and Zaev honoring former president of the Republic of Macedonia
Boris Trajkovski at his monument in
Strumica North Macedonia and Bulgaria have complicated neighbourly relations. In 2012 Bulgaria joined Greece in blocking Macedonia from obtaining a start date for EU accession talks. Bulgaria has accused Macedonia of discriminating against ethnic Bulgarians and of generating an anti-Bulgarian atmosphere in the country. Prospects for improved relations between the two countries have risen since Zaev-led government took power in Skopje in May 2017. In June in a meeting with Zaev in Sofia, PM
Boyko Borisov said Bulgaria would back Macedonia's bid to join the European Union and NATO and would also sign a long-delayed friendship treaty with it. As a result, the two governments signed a friendship treaty to bolster the relations between the two Balkan states on 1 August. It was preceded by 18 years of heavy negotiations. The treaty calls for a committee to "objectively re-examine the common history" of the two countries and envisages both countries will celebrate together events from their shared history. "Macedonia and Bulgaria have a lot of common history and this is the stepping stone for Macedonia's European and Euro-Atlantic future", Zaev said during the ceremony in Skopje. The treaty was ratified by the parliament of the Republic of Macedonia on 15 January 2018 and by the Bulgarian parliament a few days later.
Negotiations with Greece for naming dispute During the last years in Opposition and also in his inauguration speech, the new prime minister Zoran Zaev vowed his determination to resolve the
decades-old dispute with Greece. Efforts between the governments of the two countries for resolving the name dispute intensified, and on 17 January 2018, UN-sponsored negotiations had resumed, with the Greek and Macedonian ambassadors
Adamantios Vassilakis and
Vasko Naumovski meeting with the UN Envoy at Washington, who suggested five names in his proposal, all containing the name "Macedonia"
transliterated from Cyrillic. After the Zaev-Tsipras meeting in Davos, Zaev announced that streets and locations such as the
Alexander the Great airport in Skopje which were named by the
nationalist VMRO-DPMNE after
ancient Macedonian heroes and figures such as
Alexander the Great, could be renamed as a sign of goodwill towards Greece. Specifically, Zaev declared that the Alexander the Great Highway, the E-75 motorway that connects Skopje to Greece, could be renamed to "Friendship Highway". In exchange, the Greek PM announced that Greece could consent to Macedonia's bid to the Adriatic-Ionian Cooperation Agreement and the Greek Parliament could ratify the second phase of the
European Union Association Agreement with Macedonia as part of the
accession of North Macedonia to the European Union which was blocked in 2009 by Greece owing to the name dispute. In late February 2018, the government and institutions of the Republic of Macedonia announced the halt of the
Skopje 2014 program, which aimed to make Macedonia's capital have a "more classical appeal" and begun removing its controversial monuments and statues. In Spring 2018, extensive negotiations in a bid to resolve the naming dispute were held in rounds, with frequent meetings of the Foreign Ministers of Greece and Macedonia achieving tangible progress on the naming dispute. as the foreign ministers of both countries sign the
Prespa Agreement On 12 June 2018, Greek prime minister
Alexis Tsipras announced that an agreement had been reached with his Macedonian counterpart Zoran Zaev on the dispute, "which covers all the preconditions set by the Greek side". The proposal would result in the (former) Republic of Macedonia being renamed the
Republic of North Macedonia (; ), with the new name being used for all purposes. Zaev announced that the deal includes recognition of
Macedonian in the
United Nations and that the citizens of the country will be called, as before, Macedonians. However, there is an explicit clarification that the citizens of the country are not related to any Hellenic civilization previously inhabiting the region. On 5 July, the Prespa agreement was ratified again by the parliament of Macedonia with 69 MPs voting in favor of it. On 11 July,
NATO invited Macedonia to start accession talks in a bid to become the EuroAtlantic alliance's 30th member. On 30 July, the parliament of Macedonia approved plans to hold a non-binding
referendum on changing the country's name that took place on 30 September. The decisive vote to amend the constitution and change the name of the country passed on 11 January 2019 in favor of the amendment. The amendment entered into force following the ratification of the Prespa agreement and the Protocol of Accession of North Macedonia to NATO by the
Greek Parliament.
Relations to Albania and Albanians of North Macedonia Zoran Zaev has a relative good relationship with
Albania and the
Albanians of North Macedonia. During the 2016
Macedonian parliamentary election, he supported the Albanian parties and the Tirana-Platform, which was an agreement between
SDSM,
DUI and
BESA made in
Tirana, Albania. Zaev managed to win the elections in North Macedonia however the President
Gjorge Ivanov did not accept him as a new prime minister. Ivanov said he refused to give a mandate to form the country's new government to SDSM leader Zoran Zaev - who reached a coalition agreement with ethnic Albanian parties. He refuses to give such a mandate "to anyone who negotiates platforms of foreign countries that blackmail the Macedonian people, jeopardizes the integrity of the state, its sovereignty and independence." During an interview with
Top Channel, Zoran Zaev describes Albania as the friendliest country for North Macedonia and that it is a 100% friendship, mutual support for progress, a common future and a better future for citizens. Zaev pointed out that trade between Tirana and Skopje increased by 11.5 percent last year and that both countries have considerable capacity to do other tasks.
Mini Schengen Zone On 10 October 2019, together with
Aleksandar Vučić,
President of Serbia, and
Edi Rama,
Prime Minister of Albania, Zaev signed the so-called
Mini Schengen deal on regional economic cooperation, including on the
free movement of goods, capital, services, and labour between their three countries, while they await progress on EU enlargement. A month later, the leaders presented a set of proposals to achieve the "
four freedoms" and the first steps towards them, including the possibility to the
open border area. On 30 August, a coalition of the SDSM-aligned parties, DUI, and the
Democratic Party of Albanians was approved by the parliament. On 31 October 2021, shortly after Skopje local election results were revealed, Zaev announced that he will be stepping down as the prime minister of North Macedonia and as president of SDSM. On 23 December 2021, the Assembly of North Macedonia approved Prime Minister Zoran Zaev's resignation, forcing the entire government to dissolve and a new government to be elected in three weeks.
Dimitar Kovačevski was "elected to form a mandate to form a government" on 27 December 2021, to likely become the new prime minister. Kovačevski was inaugurated on 16 January 2022. ==References==