A tiny majority was enough on Friday for the Greek parliament to approve a name deal its Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, and Macedonian Premier Zoran Zaev agreed on last June, paving the way for Skopje's Euro-Atlantic integrations after 27 years of a stalemate, the Beta news agency reported.
As of today, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, as it has been officially known for over two decades, is renamed the Republic of North Macedonia and will start the process of joining NATO and open the pre-accession negotiations with the European Union.
Tsipras secured eight votes more than his coalition had and managed to win over hard-line nationalists in the Parliament, who loudly protested during the roll call.
The nationalist protests against the agreement led to street unrest, tear-gas and arrests in Athens and Thessaloniki on Thursday night.
The deal was first ratified in the Macedonian Parliament, also by a tiny majority, and also with nationalist protests, while Tsipras lost a coalition party, the Independent Greeks nationalists, but won the confidence vote last week.
The EU already dubbed the agreement historic and described it as the most significant political success in the Western Balkans in 2018.
First to express their satisfaction with the ratification were the EU high-ranking official who took part in the long-lasting name dispute.
“Today #Athens and #Skopje have, together, written a new page of our common #EU future!”
Read the joint statement by President @JunckerEU, Commissioner @JHahnEU and HRVP @FedericaMog on the adoption of the #Prespa agreement by the #Hellenic Parliament: https://t.co/jH13qK7cAt— Annemarie Huber (@Huber62) January 25, 2019
Among other things, the joint statement said that “from the very beginning, the European Union has strongly supported the historic agreement signed by Prime Ministers Tsipras and Zaev, following negotiations under the auspices of the UN. It took political courage, leadership and responsibility on all sides to resolve one of the most entrenched disputes in the region.”
Athens has obstructing Skopje's integrations saying the name Macedonia implies territorial claims against the Greek province of the same name.
