“Greece continues to stress the need to finalise the Prespes agreement” says government spokesman




Welcoming the strong ‘yes’ vote in favour of the Prespes Agreement during the referendum held in neighbouring FYROM, Greek government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos on Monday said the Greek government will continue to support the need for the deal to come into force “with sobriety, wisdom and a sense of national duty”.

“Yesterday’s referendum in FYROM was concluded with great predominance for the ‘yes’ vote; it a good development in the course toward the ratification and coming into force of the Prespes Agreement,” Tzanakopoulos said in a press conference.

He also expressed Athens’ concern over the low voter turnout, however, since this indicated that a large section of the voters viewed the agreement with scepticism and that the referendum result, despite the overwhelming percentage in favour of the agreement, was not politically binding for the opposition.

“It is now up to FYROM’s parliament and we hope that the initiative of [Prime Minister Zoran Zaev’s] government for a revision of the constitution will be successful,” Tzanakopoulos said.

The Greek side will continue to monitor developments closely and support Zaev’s initiative, with the aim of preserving the momentum of the Prespes Agreement, he added.

According to the spokesman, political forces in both Greece and FYROM were seeking to preserve a political and historical deadlock in the Balkans and this had led to a “logically untenable nationalist paradox” that undermined the chances of resolving the difference between the two countries.

“Both New Democracy and VMRO call the agreement nationally damaging and harmful to their nation’s interests: ND for the interests of Greece and VMRO for the interests of FYROM,” he pointed out. “We are seeing, therefore, ND following the nationalist voices within its ranks and rejoicing over the fact that the nationalist voices across the border have succeeded in striking a blow to the process of ratifying the agreement via abstention,” Tzanakopoulos pointed out.

Doing this, he added, ND was lauding the supposed political success of the forces in FYROM that insisted on keeping the name ‘Republic of Macedonia’ without any qualifier, considered themselves descendants of Alexander the Great and who were protesting in Skopje on Sunday under the banner ‘Say no to the Greek genocide’.

Noting that the agreement could not be damaging to both Greece and FYROM, Tzanakopoulos accused both ND and VMRO of being “captives of far-right thinking” and not daring to support a just and viable solution to the problem out of fear of the political cost.

He also accused ND’s leader Kyriako’s Mistakes of “not having either the will, or the vision, nor yet the power to confront the reactionary forces and ideologies within ND and Greek society” in order to cultivate a climate of friendship, cooperation and joint development in the Balkans.

The government will continue to support the Presses Agreement as “the only way to open up a new chapter in the relations of the two countries and so that the Balkans can take one more step toward stabilization and ensuring friendship and cooperation.”

On the 2019 draft budget

The draft 2019 budget tabled in Parliament on Monday reflected both the current fiscal environment and the Greek government’s intention to take fiscal measures that will avert the need for pension cuts, Tzanakopoulos said during the briefing.

“We have already clearly stated that the measure of cutting pensions is not necessary in order to achieve the 3.5 pct primary surplus target, provided that not all the positive measures are implemented,” he said.

On the contrary, he added, even without cutting pensions there would be sufficient fiscal space to implement a series of measures announced by the prime minister at the Thessaloniki International Fair.

“The precise quantification of these measures will be decided in the context of the processing of the budgets of all the EU member-states during the process of the European Semester,” he said.

Source: AMNA

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