Cooperation memorandums with North Macedonia depend on Prespa compliance, Gerapetritis says
The government will table memorandums of cooperation with North Macedonia in Parliament for ratification only when it is “convinced of the neighboring country’s full compliance with its international commitments,” Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis has said.
His comments follow North Macedonia’s newly elected president Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova reference to her country simply as “Macedonia” during her inauguration on Monday, even though the text of her oath uses the country’s constitutional name.
Greece reacted “very quickly and with the right reflexes” to the president’s use of the name, Gerapetritis said.
He added that he hoped that the memorandums of cooperation could be passed in his term.
The Prespa agreement was agreed in 2018 between former prime minister Alexis Tsipras with his North Macedonia counterpart, Zoran Zaev.
The New Democracy government deferred the signing of the cooperation memorandums in June 2021, claiming that North Macedonia was not implementing the Prespa agreement on the country’s name in all contexts.
On Wednesday, SYRIZA said it would table the three memorandums for a vote in Parliament.
The three memoranda concern North Macedonia’s EU accession process, economic cooperation between Greece and North Macedonia and control of North Macedonia’s flight information region.
