41362 - Tangible rights of FYROM

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Vicky Baklessi

Because of Article 11 of the Interim Agreement, Greece can veto the accession of FYROM to NATO only if she wants to enter this hyperstructure with another name. In consequence, if Greece indeed wants to obstruct this accession of FYROM, she must revoke the Interim Agreement to Skopje and for this to collapse after 12 months as it is provided by Article 23. So for the time being there isn’t any substantial obstacle, something which is in line with the fact that FYROM with this name that it is a state-member of the Organization of United Nations and of the Council of Europe since 1993. This practically means that the Pre-agreement is not necessary for the accession of FYROM. In other words the Pre-agreement has as a target the resolution of the naming problem and of course not the accession process of FYROM. So FYROM has tangible rights whatever the government’s propaganda may say. We must therefore be careful since there’s no one way street in this course. Also even if FYROM makes all these amendments it says in its Constitution, with the revoke of the Pre-agreement of Prespes by Greece, all these become annulled. In fact this clarification was passed on in Skopje, which means that essentially there is no commitment. Finally, even if the whole process, that Skopje has started, ends and the text comes for voting to the Hellenic Parliament in the beginning of 2019, since it will have to pass as a legislative bill of the Pre-agreement of Prespes, it will have to be examined by the relevant committees and this will lead us up to March 2019. So there is time for resistance.