Former Greek Prime Minister Papandreou’s statement in Parliament that the verdict in the Hague would be reached in a few days and that “whatever the verdict, the name issue will not be resolved,” is seen as a sign that Macedonia’s southern neighbor is not going to welcome with a smile the ruling of the court to be declared in the first week of December. The fact that Papandreou said for the second time that the incumbent Greek government has a historic chance to resolve the issue should not be underrated either.

Macedonian diplomatic sources say that most important to Macedonia is that it wins the first application demand whereby the court would rule that with its veto in Bucharest Greece violated the Interim Accord between the two countries. The second application demand – recommending Athens that this should not happen in the future – is in the service of getting a positive outcome for the first one, Dnevnik’s sources say. Interestingly enough, according to Greece, if the dispute in the Hague ends in a way that the court accept the first and rejects the second demand, it would be a split verdict. Greek experts say that part of the verdict will be positive for one party and the other part will be positive for the other party. In their view, Athens expects the court to condemn Greece for the veto in Bucharest, although formally that is referred to as a unanimous decision of NATO, but most probably, there will not be any recommendation for Greece not to repeat the same in the future. Greek experts add that in the verd
ict in the Hague the wording will be important as well for the way in Greece accepts the almost certain condemnation of the veto.