prespa accord (13. 170)

The short form of the United Nations sponsored treaty named for the lake at the tripoint of the borders of Greece, the then Republic of Macedonia (referred to by the exonym FYROM, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to avoid controversy of the appearance of endorsement or sometimes heavy-handedly as the Republic of Skopje) and Albania, Final Agreement for the settlement of differences as described in the UN Security Council resolutions 817 (1993) and 845 (1993), the termination of the Interim Accord of 1995 and the establishment of a strategic partnership between the Parties came into effect on this day in 2019, resolving a long-standing dispute beginning in 1991 following the dissolution of Yugoslavia into its constituent nations. Stemming from the ambiguity of the neighbouring Greek Balkan region and the ancient kingdom of Macedon, Greece insisted upon a geographic qualifier to be used erga omnes (by all…and for all purposes, internal and external), citing concerns of border disputes and the cultural appropriation, symbols like the Vergina Sun (now the icon of the parliament of the Hellenes) and the legacy of Alexander the Great, to stoke sentiments of irredentism (ирреденти́зм, αλυτρωτισμός—coined from the Italian, unredeemed, for territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that they felt belonged to “Greater Italy” and should be rightfully annexed on the basis of ethnic continuity). Contingent on the terms of the agreement, Northern Macedonia entered NATO.