by Aggelos Skordas
National Defense Minister Panos Kammenos ruled out the possibility of his party and junior coalition partner Independent Greeks (ANEL) approving a solution to the longstanding naming dispute with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) that would include the term “Macedonia”. Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, Kammenos underlined the necessity of a convention of the council of Greece’s political party leaders under the President of the Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos in order to discuss Athens’ position on the naming issue. The solution of the dispute between the two countries appears more possible than ever before, due to Skopje’s newly elected government of Zoran Zaev moderate attitude towards it.
“Our position will again be against the use of the term Macedonia”, Kammenos underlined, adding that if there is a majority approval at Parliament or among political party leaders, the proposed name will be approved, but if not, no. Furthermore, he characterised Nikos Kotzias as the best foreign minister Greece has ever had.
On his behalf, FYROM’s Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, once again, appeared optimistic for a final settlement of the decade-long dispute within the first six months of 2018. “The first half of 2018 is a very good opportunity to finally find a solution to this problem and for ‘Macedonia’ to move forward, to receive a date for the start of accession negotiations with the European Union, and to automatically trigger an invitation to join NATO”, he told journalists. According to the Associated Press, during an interview for Skopje’s TV station Tlema aired late on Friday, Zaev appeared ready to “give up the claim of ‘Macedonia’ being the sole heir to Alexander the Great”, adding that “the history belongs not only to us, but also to Greece and many other countries”.
In a different tone, during his annual address to parliament the President of FYROM Georgy Ivanov said that any mutually accepted solution must respect’s the country’s national identity. “We cannot enter into a process of auctioning off the identity of our citizens and the constitutional name of the country”, he said. The above has spread worries to Athens of a possible last-minute backtrack from Skopje regarding its new constitutional name. It should be noted that FYROM government is considering to hold a referendum over the country’s new name.
