- Greek parliament on January 25, 2019 ratified an agreement to end a nearly three decade-long dispute over neighbouring Macedonia’s name. The deal passed with 153 votes in the 300-member Greek Parliament.
- Under the agreement, Greece’s neighbor will stop using the name “Republic of Macedonia,” a name it chose for itself when it declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Now it will call itself “Republic of North Macedonia.”
- Now Greece will drop its objections to the country joining NATO and eventually the European Union. This will pave the hurdles of Macedonia’s entry into NATO and European Union.
- Greece has long argued use of the term Macedonia implied territorial claims on its own northern province of the same name. Since the early 1990s, maps have widely circulated in Greece with the landlocked state’s borders extending to the port city of Thessaloniki, Greek Macedonia’s capital, funneling territorial fears. A giant statue of the ancient Macedonian King Alexander the Great erected in Skopje’s central square fueled further claims of cultural plunder.
