„Name (of the country) North Macedonia is recorded in the country's Constitution, it is part of an international treaty, it is the name under which the country is admitted to NATO, it is the name under which accession negotiations with the EU are conducted, it is a name used everywhere. And the main thing is that this is the constitutional name of the state”, says in an interview for “360 degrees” the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, Alexandra Papadopoulou, who leads the Greek delegation during the meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and the summit of the countries of the SEE, which took place in Skopje.
Belatedly, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, Yorgos Gerapetritis, also arrived for the Summit, in whom the media in North Macedonia also had great interest, because of Greece's firm position against violating the Prespa Treaty, after the President of North Macedonia Gordana Siljanovska refused to pronounce the constitutional name of the state during her oath, as well as in her public appearances afterwards. The future prime minister of the country, Hristiyan Mitskoski, said he would do the same. According to the two, the fact that the documents they are signing are with the constitutional name of the country means that they respect the Prespa Treaty, but they have the right to self-determination and freedom of expression, and calling their country Macedonia instead of North Macedonia is their right.
„They are not ordinary citizens, they represent the state. When the Prime Minister, the President, or the Minister of Foreign Affairs, or the Minister of Defense speaks officially, they represent the state, and the state has a constitutional name that is defined and agreed upon by an international treaty within the framework of UN Security Council resolutions. Let me clarify once more – this name, the constitutional name of the state, is a name for universal use (erga omnes) agreed upon in accordance with international law and must be respected. It's not a personal matter,”, he says in the interview for “360 degrees” Papadopoulou in response to a question related to this argument.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece Alexandra Papadopoulou was her country's ambassador to the Republic of North Macedonia from 2007 to 2012 and in her answers in the interview she said that "the history of the signing of the Prespa Treaty should not is forgotten".
The agreement between Greece and the Republic of North Macedonia, signed on June 17, 2018, resolved the long-standing dispute over the name of the country, as a result of which the country became a member of NATO.
„North Macedonia is a member of NATO. That is correct. This is the result of the Treaty of Prespa. North Macedonia has started negotiations on joining the EU. And this is part of the Prespa Treaty. To equate these things with road signs is humiliating,” says Papadopoulou in response to a question related to the claims of VMRO-DPMNE representatives that Greece is not fulfilling its commitments under the Prespa Treaty because it has not replaced all road signs. some of which bear the abbreviation FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), and others - Skopje.
„Otherwise, to be honest, things are changing in Greece. Many signs say Skopje, not the old name (FYROM), and many signs here in your country say Thessaloniki or Athens. When traveling from here to Greece, the signs say Thessaloniki, this is a direction to the city, not a direction to the country. Everything will be corrected, it is not a question (that should be before us). Let's talk about the big questions. The Prespa Agreement was about the big issues, about the strategic orientation of your country – NATO, EU related to changing the name of the country in accordance with the resolutions of the UN Security Council. The memoranda have already been ratified in the Greek parliament, some memoranda (laws) have not yet been adopted in your parliament. The memorandums are not part of the Prespa Agreement, we have had memorandums before, we will have them in the future and they will be ratified. You also have stuck laws here, but we are not saying that you are not implementing the Prespa Treaty because of a few memoranda”, Papadopoulou says in the interview.
In response to a question about what Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis meant when he said that he intended to open the issue of the implementation of the Prespa Treaty at the upcoming NATO summit in Washington, Papadopoulou replied that “Northern Macedonia joined NATO, as part of the Prespa Agreement, therefore the agreement must be implemented in its entirety”.
What are the potential consequences of this situation, asked the host, and the answer of the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece read: “I don't want to talk about it, I want to have hope that we won't get to that, I want I hope that the new government of North Macedonia, when it takes power, will realize, and perhaps already realizes, that it is in the interest of your country, that it is in the interest of everyone, that you respect international obligations and move forward.