Pavlopoulos: Name and constitutional change, then treaty signing

-“A constitutional revision first, then signing of a bilateral agreement”, said Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos on Tuesday in Athens.

During a meeting with Portuguese counterpart Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the Greek president referred to the country’s open foreign policy issues, including the name dispute.

According to Pavlopoulos, the constitutional revision was not a Greek requirement, but one “referring to the European Union, the European legislation and respect for international legislation in general.”

“The constitution of our neighboring country needs to change prior to the treaty coming into force, because we Europeans, having this democratic mentality, cannot imagine that a country signs an international agreement by saying: our constitution is not that important, we can move forward and see when this can be done”, said Pavlopoulos.

He added that the name dispute should be resolved in a way that respects history, European and international law.

Pavlopoulos underlined that Greece supported Macedonia’s European and Euro-Atlantic perspectives only if the name issue was resolved, because “the Union is not the place to solve disputes.”