Greece approves Nato accession to the North of Macedonia

The Greek Parliament has approved on Friday evening, the accession request of the neighboring country of Macedonia to Nato. In January, the Greek Parliament had approved an agreement with Skopje, which sealed the change of name. With the adoption of the new country called "Republic of Northern Macedonia" ended in January a decades-long dispute between Athens and Skopje. the

Greece has ratified, as the first NATO-member of the Protocol to the accession to NATO of the future Republic of North Macedonia. 153 MPs voted in favour, 140 members of Parliament. After the vote, the Balkan country is to inform all the international organizations and all the countries about his name change.

in January, the Greek Parliament had approved an agreement with Skopje, which sealed the change of name. The agreement had agreed on the two leaders of Greece and Macedonia, Alexis Tsipras, and Zoran Zaev, after several months of arduous negotiations, and despite fierce reactions from the conservative and nationalist Opposition in the summer of 2018. '"My name is North Macedonia welcome (in the Nato). The candidate will stabilize the Region," said Tsipras after the vote.

representatives of the 29 Nato countries had signed prior to the vote in the Greek Parliament, together with the Macedonian foreign Minister, the so-called Protocol of Accession in Brussels. The candidate must be from all the other parliaments of the Alliance States have been approved.

The government in Athens had called for the renaming of the Northern neighbors of the Republic of Macedonia in the Republic of North Macedonia, because a Northern Greek province is called Macedonia and claims to territory were feared. Greece blocked for this reason, so far, the Nato accession and the further approximation of Macedonia to the EU.