Greece set to surrender Macedonia

The name for Fyromia that Kathimerini says Greece and the Skopjans are close to settling on is Republic of Vardar Macedonia or Republic of Macedonia (Vardar). Vardar being the Slav name for the Axios river that runs through northern Greece and the southern Balkans.

This is capitulation by Greece, but of a funny kind, since Greece has no pressing need to run up the white flag and still holds strong cards in its hand, notably the ability to block Fyromia's membership of Nato and the EU, both of which would bring stability to Fyrom and prevent the country falling prey to increased agitation from the Albanian minority, keen to be part of the Greater Albania project.

No. What Greece – and specifically prime minister George Papandreoou – is doing in this instance is revealing that it's tired of the issue and wants to solve it in any way it can, no matter that the name 'agreed' on not only hands the Skopjans part of Greek history and culture but also accepts the Skopjan nationalist narrative that Macedonia consists of three parts, Vardar, Pirin and Aegean Macedonia – Aegean Macedonia being 'Greek Macedonia' – waiting to be united.

The indifference, exhaustion and lack of vision that characterises Greece's attitude to Macedonia is the same that lost the country Cyprus and is losing it Thrace, and I suppose the best Greece can hope for now is that the Vardaskans will realise that, with the 'name issue' resolved, the real threat to their existence does not come from Greece but from Albania and from Turkish ambitions in the Balkans and that they will succumb to Greek influence – except that so much of the Vardaskan nationalist narrative is bound up with hostility not only to Greece, but to Bulgaria and Serbia; a narrative that they're unlikely to abandon any time soon.