The prospect of Greece’s opposition conservatives winning a parliamentary election on Sunday has cast doubt on the fate of an historic deal struck by the current leftist government with neighbouring North Macedonia, but experts doubt New Democracy really wants to tear it up.
New Democracy has long taken a hard line on the issue of Greece’s northern neighbour, and expressed outrage when the current Syriza-led government agreed last year to drop its block on Skopje’s NATO and European Union membership ambitions in exchange for a change of name, from Macedonia to North Macedonia.
Ever since Skopje split from socialist Yugoslavia in 1991, Greece has opposed the country’s use of the name ‘Macedonia’, arguing it implied territorial ambitions on a northern Greek province of the same name and an exclusive claim to the legacy of Aleksandar the Great.
Sealing the deal in June 2018 at the Prespa lakes shared by Greece, North Macedonia and Albania, the governments in Skopje and Athens faced an immediate backlash from nationalists at home.
