Greek Note received by Government, Decision published in Official Gazette

On Tuesday evening, the note verbale from the Greek Foreign Ministry notifying the Macedonian government that the Greek Parliament ratified the Protocol for Accession of Macedonia in NATO reached Skopje. The delivery of the note was followed with an announcement by the Macedonian government for the public. “We notify the public that today, 12 February 2019, the Prespa Agreement for overcoming the name differences between Macedonia and Greece covered by UN Resolutions 817 and 845 officially entered in force with publication in official gazette by the Macedonian Foreign Ministry, which means that the Temporary Agreement for this issue reached in 1995 is no longer effective. With this, all conditions for implementation of Constitutional Amendments 33, 34, 35 and 36 are fulfilled, which means that the country’s name from now on is officially Republic of North Macedonia. This starts the process for implementation of the amendments, with the first decisions to be made by the inter-departmental working group for execution of obligations from the Prespa Agreement,” writes the announcement of the government. Previously on Tuesday, the Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras hosted Tuesday a reception for the diplomatic corps in the country, including Macedonia’s Chargé d’Affaires Lidija Boskovska. The Greek Alternate Foreign Minister Georgios Katrougaos also revealed that PMs Alexist Tsipras and Zoran Zaev are to meet at the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference between 15 and 17 February, adding that the PMs will from now on discuss cooperation and exchange of experiences in numerous fields.