Athens and Skopje have sent a joint letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres announcing that the Prespa Agreement has come into force under which both parties agree that the new name for the country of which Skopje is the capital is North Macedonia. It had called itself the Republic of Macedonia since the 1990’s. The name issue had been the subject of a long and bitter dispute with Greece, which has a region called Macedonia. The replacement of banknotes with the new name will start in 2020. The agreement with Greece should clear the way for discussions to begin on North Macedonia’s entry into the European Union as well as NATO.
