Allegations of illegal surveillance have reignited political tensions in North Macedonia, with accusations between the ruling and opposition parties exposing the country’s fragile trust in its security institutions nearly a decade after a mass wiretapping scandal shook the Balkan state.
Ruling VMRO-DPMNE on Tuesday demanded an emergency session of parliament’s oversight committee for the National Security Agency (ANB), after Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski alleged that state services had unlawfully monitored politicians, journalists and business figures.
“Did the security services under SDSM’s leadership spy on Mickoski with the knowledge of prosecutor Kocevski?” the party asked in a statement, calling for urgent scrutiny of the claims.
The opposition Social Democrats (SDSM), which was in power from 2017 to 2024, dismissed VMRO-DPMNE’s accusations – now a ruling party – as a “bluff” and “legally impossible.” But opposition party leader Venko Filipce pressed for “urgent and full declassification” of ANB documents related to the case, insisting the public had the right to know whether security services had been misused.
The prosecutor’s office said it would review the allegations after ANB itself reported earlier this year that between 2019 and 2024, special surveillance measures may have been wrongly applied to public figures. Agency sources told local media the documents stem from an internal investigation under former director Viktor Dimovski and included signs of misuse of special measures, sometimes based on “false notes.”
For critics, Filipce’s call for transparency is an attempt to clear doubts that the services have been politicised. For VMRO-DPMNE, SDSM’s insistence on disclosure is a tactic to deflect responsibility while bypassing proper judicial procedure.
The standoff recalls the 2015 scandal, when revelations of mass surveillance of over 20,000 people, including politicians, journalists and activists, triggered years of political turmoil and EU-mediated negotiations.
The outcome now depends on the prosecutor’s office and the courts, which face a test of whether North Macedonia’s institutions can credibly address suspicions of political interference in security services – a long-standing concern in the country’s EU accession process.