Potami MP Lykoudis confirms he will back Prespes name deal

Spyros Lykoudis, a lawmaker from centrist party To Potami, confirmed, as expected, that he will back the deal signed between Athens and Skopje when it comes to Parliament for ratification.

“We have said from the beginning that the agreement has a positive main pillar because it fulfils the decades-old national effort for FYROM to adopt a composite name erga omnes,” the political movement headed by Lykoudis, the “Reformists of the Left” said in a statement on Friday.

“We are today before an important and a chronic problem of our foreign policy whose perpetuation has always worked against us. This loose end must come to an end. Our country's position in the big European family and the leading role it can play in the region require the solution of the problem,” it added.

Ruling SYRIZA has 145 deputies, and can count on the positive votes of Deputy Citizens’ Protection Minister Katerina Papacosta, four ANEL deputies, Tourism Minister Elena Kountoura, Deputy Agriculture Minister Vassilis Kokkalis, Thanassis Papachristopoulos and Costas Zouraris and To Potami leader Stavros Theodorakis, and party MP Spyros Danellis, Spyros Lykoudis and Giorgos Mavrotas, we end up again with an even wider majority in the 300-member Parliament. 

There might be one more, that of Democratic Left chief Thanasis Theocharopoulos.