After he pushed the amendments to rename Macedonia through the Parliament, Zoran Zaev also received congratulations from Sebastian Kurz, Jeremy Hunt, Nikos Kotzias and Ditmar Bushati.
The Austrian Chancellor tweeted his hope that this will be a major step for “North Macedonia” toward the EU accession. The British Foreign Secretary issued a statement also wishing Macedonia to progress toward NATO and the EU as well.

The UK strongly welcomes the vote in Macedonia’s Parliament today in favour of implementing the Prespa Agreement. This is an historic moment for Macedonia. This marks a major step towards resolving the long-standing Name Issue with Greece, and brings the country closer to a more secure, stable and prosperous future at the heart of the Euro-Atlantic community, Hunt wrote.

Kotzias, who helped negotiated the deal with Zaev as Greek Foreign Minister, and was dismissed in a feud with the nationalist ANEL party over it after allegations he was bribing Macedonian politicians and journalists with Greek funds, told Zaev that he hopes the two countries can now build mutual trust. “North Macedonia welcome to our lives”, tweeted Kotzias.

And the outgoing Albanian Foreign Minister Bushati congratulated Zaev on the name change, but also welcomed the pressure Albanian parties in Macedonia put forward to get to this. According to Bushati, the Albanian votes were the deciding factor. Ethnic Albanians in Macedonia supported the name change in far greater percentages than ethnic Macedonians, who overwhelmingly reject it and Zaev’s SDSM party and the Government are both propped up by Albanian voters.