The recent agreement has settled the Macedonian-Greek dispute. The population of North-Macedonia’s hopes for a better future – many of the Changes to, however, is skeptical.
Next step, NATO – and EU-membership? Some of the North-the Macedonians hope for a rapprochement with the West
In the Republic of Northern Macedonia, many people still stutter when you try to get used to it, as you have to call their country today.
Now, not everyone’s tried it.
“Not I, not I. No, definitely not”, says the former Diplomat Martin Trenevski, Ambassador of his Nation, in Sweden, Canada and at NATO, as it was called, provisionally, “the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” (FYROM). Trenevski pulled back, before the current government took the Prespa agreement, and he refuses to keep to the name change – a personal matter: “fortunately, I am now retired,” he says with a Smile, “so I don’t need it and won’t.”
His wife, who sits at the other end of the dining table, shaking his head. Vasilka Poposka was Skopje’s Ambassador to Austria, as the Prespa agreement was negotiated. You moderated the negotiation meetings often, and saw up close how high the stakes were. “There was no other way,” she said with Conviction. “I saw that it was for both sides. I am sure that no one is satisfied, but we knew that we have to do this.”, she says and shrugs his shoulders. “‘Northern Macedonia’ to me is not that bad.”
Martin Trenevski and Vasilka Poposka
Changes in monuments and in school textbooks
The Prespa agreement was concluded last summer after a year-long dispute between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia. It provides, on the one hand, the change of name of the Republic in “Northern Macedonia”, which was implemented in February of this year. At the same time, the state dispensed with the new name on the territorial claims against the Northern Greek province of Macedonia.
Of national monuments in the country also placed new signs on which to stand, that there are different interpretations of historical claims. This is something have not understood the two former diplomats Poposka and Treneveski and also the citizens. Everybody Worries about what is allowed under the new agreement, and what is not, designed how strict it is, the symbols can be considered as a violation.
The end of the “Vergina sun”
In addition, the agreement provides that the legendary “Vergina sun” is not to be officially used as well; the Committee will also review textbooks, historical documents, and maps in both countries. Content that could be considered “crazy dentist” or the restoration of the Republic of Macedonia are calling for, should be removed.
The “Vergina sun” is removed from all official documents or objects
This is a Problem for Trenevski. As a former Journalist and the author of several historical books he believes that the in the border region of Prespa agreement negotiated with the changes that wipes out large parts of the past of his country. “I have a map from the early 17th century. Century, on the wall,” he explains. “Because of Macedonia. But in the new editions of the history books, it should be something else.”
He refers to the part of the Prespa agreement, stating that a joint Committee of interdisciplinary experts, textbooks, textbooks, atlases and other official documents, check to find out what should be changed. Skopje had already agreed to change the from 1992 to 1995, used the flag because Athens insisted that the Vergina sun symbol is Greek.
A high price to pay for Prespa
Trenevski believes that the price of Prespa was too high. “We should have a better business,” he says.
“Maybe I’m pragmatic,” said Poposka. It had been made unequivocally clear that the relations had deteriorated to Greece if their government had rejected this agreement. She says that everyone wanted to help in the international community in Skopje – but only if it helps themselves. “The price is high,” she agrees, “but we have to live with it.”
To the Contrary, it was rewarded. The agreement opened the locked door to NATO for its Opening Trenevski for years in Brussels had fought. Now the North of Macedonia, especially the younger generations hope that the European Union opens the arms, and the country a smooth path to EU membership, paving.
Passport to the past
The daughter of Poposka and Trenevski is returned with your canadian husband recently, to Northern Macedonia, where it has to get a child. Galena Cunningham says, you look at the Situation with mixed feelings.
When the negotiated agreement was a done deal and the name change was imminent, rushed to the Cunninghams, to apply for a passport for her daughter Sophia. It should be “Republic of Macedonia” and not “Northern Macedonia”. “Emotionally, I really wanted to, at least in your first Pass ‘Republic of Macedonia’ is,” said Cunningham. “It’s okay, you next Pass from the North will be Macedonia, but that means a lot to me.”
For many an emotionally important document: a passport to the “Republic of Macedonia”
At the same time she acknowledged that there was no other way from the previous course to the North-Macedonia depart. “That was the only step forward,” she says. “We are not in a magical way as Western countries, but it brings us a step closer.” After the last Meeting with the North-Macedonia’s government said EU foreign Minister Federica Mogherini, it was the desire and Plan of the EU, in this year of negotiations with Skopje.
Cunningham believes that in the future, still a few people about the Changes in signs, monuments, and textbooks, annoy be, but this will be a minority. “The name change was the biggest Problem of the people,” she says. “But since that was so well accepted, I think, that everything will be okay.”
Except, perhaps, in the house of her parents, where her father complains still about the terms and conditions of Prespa. “If I ask for my birth certificate, will it mean that I was born in Northern Macedonia, which is not the case,” lamented TrenevskI. “I was born in the Republic of Macedonia.”