Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras spoke to party supporters in the northern city of Thessaloniki on Friday evening, again boasting of taking the country out of the memorandum era entailed in three successive bailouts, and pointing to what he called a path towards “fair growth”.
The head of the poll-trailing SYRIZA party arrived in the city to also deflect grassroots opposition, particularly in northern Greece and with Thessaloniki as the focal point, to his government’s provisional Prespa agreement with the neighboring former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYRoM).
Speaking at a small indoor arena to a few thousand supporters, many bused in from other parts of the country, Tsipras countered that Thessaloniki is not the “city of the far-right and hate … Macedonia and Thessaloniki will not turn back,” he said, referring to the northern Greece province and the name that is at the heart of the fYRoM “name dispute” between Greece and fYRoM. The one-time Yugoslav constituent state has insisted on the constitutional name of “Republic of Macedonia” since 1991.
His references to the provisional Prespa agreement and the overall “name issue”, was, in fact, extensive and detailed.
“We came to provide a solution to the benefit of Greece, to our Macedonia; to the benefit of all the Balkans, for peace, cooperation and co-development in our region … the Prespa agreement ends the falsification of our history. It conclusively ends, once and for all, the insulting appropriation of ancient Hellenic (Greek) Macedonia; it conclusively ends, once and for all, fYRoM’s absurdity and irredentism, in a crystal-clear manner, which will from now on be printed in the neighboring country’s constitution.”
Turning to previous Greek governments since 1991, he said the agreement – which must be ratified by the legislatures in both countries – closes a “window” opened by the “irresponsible stance of (past) Greek governments, which led to the neighboring country being recognized, internationally, with its current constitutional name, namely, the Republic of Macedonia.”
Finally, in addressing shrill and ideologically-tinted attacks on his party and the coalition government, Tsipras said: “the Left is not selling out Macedonia; it’s saving the cultural and historical legacy of Greek Macedonia; that’s what the Left is doing with the Prespa agreement…”
Tsipras’ address in Thessaloniki was greeted by a small counter rally at the White Tower, with protestors surround by much larger, in size, police contingent to protect the venue. Moreover, the speaking event was scheduled after a date was fixed for rival New Democracy (ND) party’s congress in Athens and the inaugural address by party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis – something that in the past was avoided by major parties in Greece.
