Skopje, April 27 – Radmila Shekerinska, a senior figure in North Macedonia’s Social Democratic Union (SDSM), has been appointed NATO deputy secretary-general, marking a career high point nearly eight years after surviving one of the most violent days in the country’s recent political history.
On April 27, 2017, a mob stormed North Macedonia’s parliament in protest against the election of Talat Xhaferi, an ethnic Albanian and former defense minister, as speaker—a move that ended nearly a decade of VMRO-DPMNE rule. The attack injured around 100 people, including lawmakers and journalists. Shekerinska, then a prominent opposition lawmaker, was physically assaulted in an incident caught on video. One attacker received a four-year prison sentence for yanking her hair during the melee.
Her appointment in November 2024 as NATO’s No. 2 comes amid heightened tensions in Eastern Europe, as the war in Ukraine enters its third year and instability persists across the Western Balkans. Her selection signals NATO’s increased focus on its eastern flank, which includes a region still grappling with ethnic divisions, weak governance, and rising nationalism.
Shekerinska, who previously served as North Macedonia’s defense minister and deputy prime minister for European integration, was chosen over Bulgarian candidate Mariya Gabriel, a former deputy prime minister and two-time European commissioner.
NATO had been expected to select a figure from Central or Eastern Europe following the five-year term of Romanian politician Mircea Geoană. Shekerinska’s deep understanding of the Western Balkans gives NATO a strategic advantage, analysts say, as the alliance recalibrates in response to Russia’s assertiveness and ongoing secessionist pressures in Bosnia and Herzegovina and tensions surrounding Kosovo’s status.
Shekerinska’s political career spans more than two decades. She played a key role in negotiating the 2001 Ohrid Framework Agreement, which ended internal conflict in North Macedonia and expanded rights for ethnic Albanians. In 2005, her leadership helped secure EU candidate status for the country.
“The success of the Ohrid Framework Agreement was due to a unified position of the West—the EU, the US, and NATO,” Shekerinska said in 2021. “That same unified approach is needed today.”
