Clouds gathering beyond Athens

It happened, after all: Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova was elected president of North Macedonia with the support of the right-wing nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party. The 71-year-old, who is also the country’s first female president, had run for the same office unsuccessfully in 2019 and during her campaign had vowed to scrap the 2018 Prespes Agreement with Greece and to hold a referendum for bringing back the name “Macedonia,” without the geographical qualifier. The nationalists’ triumph was further topped by the VMRO-DPMNE victory in the parliamentary elections, too, where Hristijan Mickoski was elected prime minister; he too continues to call the country “Macedonia” even though this is a violation of the name deal.

That said, Greece’s ruling New Democracy party, under the leadership of Kyriakos Mitsotakis and under pressure from hundreds of thousands of protesters in Thessaloniki and Athens had vehemently opposed the Prespes Agreement in 2018. The party did not move to scrap it when it assumed power in 2019, however, but nor did it assume the responsibility of ratifying the various pending protocols that would have signaled the final steps of the agreement’s implementation.

The Mitsotakis government is now expecting the new government in North Macedonia to make the necessary adjustments to its positions for the sake of moving ahead on the issue of European Union membership. In the meantime, though, the overwhelming nationalist victory is thought to have been largely geared by citizens’ frustration in the slow progress of accession.

The United States is sure to solve this problem, though, by putting pressure on the politically spineless Europeans to accelerate procedures, which will most likely mean that the Prespes Agreement will ultimately be finalized in terms of implementation by the Mitsotakis and Mickoski governments – how things change.

There are other clouds from the north, however, that are casting a shadow on the Greek government, not least of which is that of Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, who will be in Athens on Monday to speak to a gathering of Albanian men and women who live and work in Greece and to share his vision for “Albania 2030.”

A few days ago, Mitsotakis had dismissed Rama’s presence in Greece as “unnecessary” and said that the Greek government would neither facilitate nor hinder the gathering. The Greek prime minister’s refusal to ban the event has been criticized by the opposition, but also by part of the conservative factions within New Democracy.

All of this, in the meantime, is happening in the run-up to the June 9 European Parliament elections, with public opinion polls registering a significant rise in support for the parties to the right of conservative New Democracy, and especially in northern Greece. Greece is, obviously, a lot more than Athens and things are brewing beyond the capital – and it is high time that the government started taking that into account. In other respects, we’re doing great – but are we, really?