Skopje to implement change of country’s name to ‘Republic of North Macedonia’ in coming days – official
The government in Skopje said on February 9 that it is to publish the date of entry into force of the constitutional amendments – including changing the name of the former Yugoslav republic to “Republic of North Macedonia” – in the state’s official gazette.
The announcement came the day after the Parliament in Athens voted Greece’s approval of Skopje’s Nato accession protocol.
The legislatures in Skopje (on January 11) and Athens (on January 25) already both have ratified the Prespa Agreement, the June 2018 deal between the governments of Alexis Tsipras and Zoran Zaev to end the decades-long dispute over the former Yugoslav republic’s use of the name “Republic of Macedonia”.
“After the fulfillment of all legal requirements for the entry into force of the Final Agreement and the Constitutional Amendments, the Government of the Republic of Macedonia will publish the date of entry into force of the Constitutional Amendments and the Constitutional Law in the Official Gazette,” according to a notice on the vlada.mk website on the afternoon of February 9.
“After that, the Republic of North Macedonia and Greece will submit a joint letter to the UN Secretary General, informing António Guterres of the date of entry into force of the Final Agreement, thus ending the decades-long bilateral dispute between the two countries,” the statement said.
After this, the Republic of Northern Macedonia will inform, in an appropriate manner, the UN Secretariat, the member states, the UN observer countries, as well as all the other international organisations of which it is a member, about the changes that have occurred.
“All this is expected to happen in the next few days, about which you will be informed in a timely manner,” the statement said.
