North Macedonia’s Presidential Website Drops “North” from Country Name, Igniting Diplomatic Tensions

The official website of the president of North Macedonia has removed references to the constitutional name of the country from its homepage, replacing them with the abbreviation "MK" or simply "Macedonia."

This change follows the recent election of President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, who caused a diplomatic row with Greece by referring to her country as “Macedonia” during her inauguration, in violation of the Prespa Agreement. This agreement, signed in 2018, resolved a long-standing dispute between the two countries over the state’s name.

Previous snapshots of the website show that, until at least May 15, the site featured a link labelled “North Macedonia” on its header, which has now been replaced with “MK.” However, this link leads to a page titled “Republic of North Macedonia.”

Further down the main page, a link superimposed on a photograph of the country’s flag being hoisted by soldiers has been renamed “Macedonia” instead of “North Macedonia.” Additionally, all references to “North Macedonia” have been removed from the links in the footer of the webpage.

Moreover, all pages on the site mentioning the current head of state refer to her simply as “president” without any geographical indicator. The revamped site, unlike the older presidential site, is now only available in the country’s majority Macedonian language, excluding previously available versions in Albanian (spoken by about a quarter of the population) and English.

On her X profile, Siljanovska-Davkova refers to herself as “President of Macedonia, wife, mother, professor, activist, expert, vegetarian, rocker.”

Source: GCT