Samaras: Prespes deal tantamount to recognizing FYROM’s irredentist ambitions

Greece’s former conservative prime minister Antonis Samaras on Thursday slammed the name deal reached between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) saying the accord was tantamount to recognizing the latter’s irredentist ambitions.

“The Prespes deal violates our national [policy] line. “It does not solve problems, but creates a lot more new ones,” said Samaras who addressed an Athens rally against the deal on Sunday.

Speaking in Parliament ahead of a vote on the deal, Samaras criticized the agreement for recognizing a Macedonian language, while adding that a settlement must not include derivative or composite forms of the word “Macedonia.”

Samaras quit the government back in 1992, and then the New Democracy party in 1993, bringing down the conservative government with a hardline stance on the name issue. He returned to New Democracy in 2004, became party leader in 2009 and was Prime Minister from 2012-2015.

Earlier Thursday it was announced that the vote has been pushed back to Friday.