Macedonia’s Government adopts new country name

The move followed both Greek and Macedonian parliaments’ endorsement of the agreement signed by the prime ministers of Macedonia and Greece last June.

Zoran Zaev and Alexis Tsipras agreed to end the 27-year-old name dispute which prevented Macedonia from applying for NATO and European Union membership.

Wednesday’s decision obliges all state institutions at home and abroad to formally change the county’s name into North Macedonia in both Macedonian and Albanian, seven days after Athens ratifies the Protocol for Skopje’s joining NATO.

Both premiers have faced bitter resistance to the deal by hard-line nationalists at home, while the EU praised the two for courage and dubbed the agreement “historic” and described it as the greatest political success in the Western Balkans in 2018.