There’s Prespa Agreement, but no negotiations: Zaev and Dimitrov prematurely renamed documents and institutions into “North”

Bulgaria’s veto on the start of Macedonia’s EU negotiations is largely related to the implementation of the agreement with Greece in the part with the opening of the chapters.

At the moment when it is clear that there are no negotiations, and there will not be in the near future, Zaev and Dimitrov are obliged to answer whether they will continue to implement the provisions to which we are not bound without the start of negotiations.

This mostly refers to the documents used by the public administration, the citizens, for internal and external use, as well as the renaming of the state institutions and enterprises by adding the adjective “North”.

Thus, Macedonian Railways became the Railways of the Republic of North Macedonia. The Philharmonic Orchestra was renamed from “Macedonian” into “National”, but before the name, instead of the Republic of Macedonia, it will say “Republic of North Macedonia”. The same goes for the Macedonian Opera and Ballet. Macedonian Radio-Television became National, as well as the Public Enterprise “Macedonian Broadcasting” which was renamed “National Broadcasting”.

The Macedonian Post also was renamed into “National”. Zaev said a few months ago that the next to be renamed was the Archaeological Museum of Macedonia.

The government prematurely started to change all documents that are exclusively for internal use, such as citizenship, birth certificate, school records, etc.

The tenth point of the Prespa Agreement from Article 1 clearly states how the implementation should proceed.

A technical and political transition period is envisaged.

The technical transition period applies to all official documents and materials of the Public Administration of the Second Party for international use and for documents for domestic use and it must be completed no later than five years after the entry into force of the agreement.

The political “transition period” will apply to all documents and materials, which are exclusively for internal use and they are related to the opening of specific chapter in the negotiations with the EU, but not later than five years.

Unlike Zaev’s government, Greece has not fulfilled any point of the agreement so far, and even on the signs there is still the reference FYROM or “Skopia” instead of the new name they agreed on.