North. It’s just a single five-letter word, but in Macedonia in recent weeks it has prompted many column inches of debate, hours of coffee-shop discussions and pages of online abuse.
A referendum at the end of the month will ask citizens whether they are willing to add the word to the country’s official name, making it the Republic of North Macedonia.
The change is the main part of an agreement between Macedonia and Greece signed by their respective prime ministers in June. Greece has long blocked Macedonian accession to Nato and the European Union, claiming its northern neighbour’s name is an unfair appropriation from the northern Greek region of Macedonia.
For many inside Macedonia, changing the name is a delicate issue. “It’s not just about one word. Think about Northern Ireland and Ireland. Words have meaning,” said Sasho Klekovski, a pollster and analyst who opposes the deal.
Nikola Dimitrov, Macedonia’s foreign minister, who spent months in negotiations with his Greek counterpart hammering out details of the deal, said it would offer a new path forward for the small nation of around 2 million people, which has struggled since it became independent after the collapse of Yugoslavia.
“We have lost a generation. I am 45, I was 18 when Macedonia became independent. In a way this is the second chance for our generation to make it,” he said in an interview at his office in central Skopje, Macedonia’s capital.
On 30 September the population will be asked: “Are you in favour of Nato and EU membership, and accepting the name agreement between the republic of Macedonia and Greece?”
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