Kasselakis accuses government of doublespeak on Prespa Agreement
Main opposition SYRIZA leader Stefanos Kasselakis on Monday accused the ruling conservatives of exploiting the contentious name deal between Greece and North Macedonia for political advantage.
The Prespa Agreement, inked by the leftist SYRIZA government in 2018, had faced staunch opposition from New Democracy, then in the opposition. Some conservative officials had declared their intention to revise the pact if they assumed power.
On Sunday, the Greek government swiftly criticized North Macedonia’s newly elected president, Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, for referring to her country as “Macedonia,” citing a breach of the agreement’s terms.
Kasselakis took to social media in response on Monday, sharing a 65-second video collage featuring past comments by Adonis Georgiadis, now the health minister, purportedly exposing his inconsistency regarding the name deal. In one segment, Georgiadis attacks the agreement, adding that the election of a nationalist VMRO-DPNE government in Skopje would offer an “opportunity” to revise the deal.
“They had hoped that the VMRO would emerge victorious. They fostered expectations among nationalists on the other side that together they would annul the Prespa Agreement. Now that the VMRO has won, they are begging,” Kasselakis said in the post.
“Through such phraseology, through this political deception, they gambled with a national issue for the sake of a few thousand far-right votes,” he said. “Let the democratic world contemplate the wounds that hatred, propaganda, and amorality can inflict, when given 41%.”
On Monday the Greek prime minister slammed Siljanovska-Davkova’s “Macedonia” reference.
“It’s well-known that as the opposition, New Democracy voted against the 2019 agreement,” he said in a social media post. “In fact, it warned at that time about the problems that its shortcomings would create.”
“However, as a government, we respected the Greek signature on an international treaty that binds the country. Unfortunately, the recent development confirms our consistently cautious position,” he added.
