The Prespa Agreement (Slavonic: Пpecnaнckи AoroBop, Prespanski Dogover, English: Prespa Agreement) is an inter-state agreement concluded on 12 June 2018 between the Hellenic Republic and the Republic of North Macedonia, renamed as such upon the entry into force of the agreement on 12 February 2019, and was concluded under the auspices of the United Nations in order to resolve the name issue of the latter.
The Agreement replaced the 1995 Interim Agreement and abolished the constitutional name of the Republic of Macedonia and the provisional name of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, renaming and universally recognising the country as the Republic of North Macedonia. The adoption of the agreement provoked reactions in both countries.
Among other things, the text of the agreement provides for:
1.The official name will be “Republic of North Macedonia”, which will be the constitutional name and will be used erga omnes, as provided for in the agreement. The short name will be “North Macedonia”.
2.The citizenship will be Macedonian/Citizen of the Republic of North Macedonia, as will be recorded in all travel documents.
3.The official language will be “Macedonian” as recognized by the Third United Nations Conference on Standardization of Geographical Names held in Athens in 1977, and described in Article 7 (3) and (4) of this Agreement.
4. The terms “Macedonia” and “Macedonian” shall have the meaning assigned to them in Article 7 of the Agreement.
5.The country codes for car number plates shall be NM and NMK. For all other purposes the country codes shall remain MK and MKD as officially assigned by the International Organization for Standardization.
Article 7 of the Agreement states:
1.The Parties recognize that their mutual understanding of the terms “Macedonia” and “Macedonian” refers to different historical context and historical heritage.
2. With regard to Greece, these terms refer not only to the territory and population of northern Greece but also to their characteristics, as well as to the Greek culture, history, culture and heritage of this region from ancient times to the present day.
3.With regard to FYROM, these terms refer to the territory, language, population and their characteristics, with their own history, culture and heritage, distinctly different from those referred to in the above paragraph (Article 7.2).
The FYROM notes that its official language, Macedonian, belongs to the group of South Slavic languages. The two Parties also note that the official language and other characteristics of FYROM are not related to the ancient Greek culture, history, culture and heritage of the northern region of Greece.
Article 2 of the agreement stipulates that Greece will not oppose the neighbour’s accession under the new name and terminology to international, multilateral and regional organisations and institutions of which Greece is a member.
Read what the full text of the agreement includes, in Greek and in English, the hyperlink was created by the online version of KATHIMERINI