The Role of Political Leaders on the Prespa Agreement
The Role of Political Leaders on the Prespa Agreement

Summary/Abstract: The relations between Macedonia and Greece have been very tense over the name dispute during the last 30 years. This political issue kept Macedonia outside the NATO alliance since 2008, when it first attempted to join, and was refused by Greece because of the name issue. The main problem consisted on the fact that Greece did not recognize Macedonia with its formal name instead, and that it should be called Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). In this paper we will be analyzing the role of political leaders from both countries (Greece and Macedonia) during the Prespa Meetings and their efforts and obstacles in reaching the Agreement, which set a new page of diplomacy between Greece and Macedonia. By using different scientific methodologies such as literature review, analyses of the official text and document, as well as analyses of the media from the both countries, we are going to try to find the causes and consequences of these policies from both sides, and the impact that the international community had on the resolving the crisis. In order to reach the whole picture on the situation, we will analyze the result of the referendum regarding the name issue, the boycott of the referendum by the opposition VMRO-DPMNE, the use of nationalism for political gains and the voting on the name change on the parliament, as well as the role the Albanian community on the final outcome.

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