Main opposition New Democracy (ND) leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis referred to an “impressive turnout” for a rally held in the northern city on Sunday afternoon to express a more hard-line position over the fYRoM ‘name issue’ – as the latter abruptly re-emerged, after years, in the political limelight since the beginning of the year.
Mitsotakis and his main opposition party’s stance vis-a-vis whatever possible outcome in resurgent negotiations between Athens and Skopje is under close scrutiny, given that the junior coalition party in the current leftist-rightist coalition government, the small right-wing Independent Greeks (AN.EL), expresses a nationalist position on the “name issue”.
In referring to the Sunday rally on Thessaloniki’s seafront, with the city’s emblematic White Tower as the focal point, Mitsotakis said it “demonstrates the particularly high degree of sensitivity on the part of (Greece’s) society over the issue of Skopje’s (fYRoM) name.”
“I respect and share this sensitivity; nor can the few extremist elements alter the nature of this large and popular protest rally, a rally that expresses, at the same time, citizens’ concerns with a government that is acting in the shadows…” Mitsotakis said.
Police estimated the size of the crowds at the rally at 90,000, with 284 coaches used to transport people from across Greece.
Although nearly dormant, in terms of substantive negotiations since 2008, resurgent negotiations this month caused political reverberations in Greece, with the opposition demanding from the Tsipras government to take a clear position on the issue.
On the other side of the political spectrum, nationalist and populist circles in the still bailout-dependent country demand that Athens avoid any solution that includes the name “Macedonia” for the neighboring country – despite the fact that Greece already recognizes the latter, albeit with a provisional name, as the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYRoM).
A decision by practically all parliament-represented political leaders in 2008 cited a “composite name solution” with a geographic qualifier before the name “Macedonia” for all uses.
