[InTime News]
Greece’s support for North Macedonia’s aspiration to join the European Union is contingent on the “integral, consistent and in good faith application of the Prespa Agreement, including the use of the country’s constitutional name toward all [parties],” Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis told his visiting Macedonian counterpart Timco Mucunski Wednesday.
With the 2018 Prespa Agreement, which resolved a long-standing dispute over the name, Greece’s neighbor agreed to call itself “North Macedonia,” although its citizens and its major ethnic group are called Macedonians.
But President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova and Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski, elected in 2023 and 2024 respectively, insist on omitting the “North” when mentioning their country. Both belong to the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party, which had opposed the agreement signed by North Macedonia’s social democratic government.
Mucunski, 36, is considered a moderate within the Skopje government.