PM Heads Into Full Day of FYROM Briefings

There will be little rest on Saturday for Greek premier Alexis Tsipras as he meets the country’s opposition leaders for a series on briefings on the ‘Macedonia’ name dispute.
Many of the leaders are angry at what they see as a too-little, too-late approach by the prime minister, who already held discussions with Skopje’s leadership at the World Economic Forum this week in Davos, Switzerland.
Head of the main opposition New Democracy party, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has already said an update on talks at this stage is of little use. His party previously hit out at a decision by the prime minister to brief Greek Orthodox leader Ieronymos II before opposition politicians.
Tsipras’ SYRIZA party faces opposition to any compromise on the name dispute which uses the word ‘Macedonia’ in the title for the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).
However, a previously published life of five UN-backed alternative names for the Balkan state all make use of the loaded term, drawing Greeks onto the streets in protest and forcing emergency meetings of the Greek Orthodox Church.
On Friday night, Tsipras met Greek president Prokopis Pavlopoulos for a briefing.
“We will seek a solution on the name dispute with FYROM now, before the issue gets even harder down the road,” the PM told the president just before the update began. “We’re not there yet, but some steps on the issue of FYROM’s constitutional irredentism have been taken,” he added.
Tsipras will meet Kyriakos Mitsotakis at Maximos Mansion in Athens at 10.30 a.m. local time (0830GMT), followed by PASOK’s Fofi Gennimata at 12.30 p.m.
Communist Party General-Secretary Dimitris Koutsoubas will meet the Greek leader at 1.30 p.m. followed by Stavros Theodorakis of The River at 3 p.m. and Centrists’ Union head Vassilis Leventis at 5.30 p.m.