A cordial handover ceremony took place at the Greek foreign ministry in Athens on Saturday morning, as resigned minister Nikos Kotzias greeted his successor, none other than Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who accepted the former’s resignation days earlier.
Speculation of an acrimonious exchange was dispelled, as Tsipras first thanked Kotzias as an “invaluable associate”, before citing Friday’s evening passage in the parliament of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYRoM) of a vote to commence the first phase of constitutional revision. Enacting changes in the country’s constitution stems from the Prespa accord to resolve the fYRoM “name issue”.
A bitter argument over the landmark agreement, laced with personal attacks and allegations of misuse of ministries’ discretionary funds, erupted between Kotzias and right-wing Defense Minister Panos Kammenos at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, and ultimately led to the former’s resignation.
Kammenos and his remaining MPs in the small rightist-populist Independent Greeks (AN.EL) party continue to prop up the mostly leftist SYRIZA government. However, Kammenos remains, at least in public, bitterly opposed to the provisional Prespa accord that the mostly leftist Tsipras government – in which he participates and backs – negotiated, signed and will bring to Greece’s parliament for ratification.
Taking to Twitter late on Friday evening, in fact, the outspoken career politician tweeted, in Greek, that “Who would have believed that in a Europe of values and democracy whoever votes against orders is jailed, and whoever behaves gets a bonus of two billion euros in black money. I am ashamed.”,
He was referring directly to the razor-slim passage in fYRoM’s parliament of a vote to commence the process of renaming the country to “North Macedonia”.
The necessary two-thirds majority was reached when 80 deputies in the 120-seat legislature voted in favor. Seven opposition VMRO deputies, and another MP from an opposition ally, failed to “toe the party line” and joined government coalition MPs in passing the measure, generating Kammenos’ insinuation of bribery.
A spokesman for the government in Skopje later charged that the Greek minister was circulating fake news.
Kotzias, on his part, said he was leaving the ministry in a satisfied mood, adding that a serious step forward was being taken in the fyrom “name issue”.
