The Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs Bojan Maricik hosted the meeting with the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Economic Diplomacy and Openness of the Hellenic Republic, Kostas Fragogiannis.

At the beginning of the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Maricik and Deputy Minister Fragogiannis expressed satisfaction with the dynamics of the relations between North Macedonia and Greece within the Prespa Agreement and the strengthened bilateral cooperation. The Greek side reaffirmed its strong support for accelerating the European integration process, both politically and in terms of providing expert and technical support to the teams in the country that will work on the chapters in order to start negotiations between North Macedonia and the Union.

"I am glad that today the Republic of Greece is a strong lobbyist for the European perspective of North Macedonia and our friend and partner in fulfilling our strategic goal of completing our long-term accession process by starting EU membership negotiations," said Deputy Prime Minister Maricik.

The result of the Prespa Agreement achieved its goals and, in addition to resolving the three-decade-old open issue between the two neighbouring countries, created an alliance and partnership, and developed bilateral cooperation that opened new opportunities for both countries.

At the meeting, we expressed readiness to reactivate the cooperation within the Memorandum for accelerating the process of integration of the Republic of North Macedonia into the EU, signed in April 2019. Maricik and Fragogiannis considered the possibilities for deepening the bilateral cooperation between the two countries in terms of supporting the reform process, as well as expanding the economic cooperation within the Memorandum for establishing a steering committee for economic cooperation under the Prespa Agreement, which ratification procedure was finalized in July 2021.

Good neighbourly relations have resulted in strengthening cross-border cooperation and we will continue to promote cooperation in areas important to the citizens of both countries, through the implementation of projects funded by the Cross-Border Cooperation Program.