Athens, 17 June 2024 (MIA) – To mark the sixth anniversary of the signing of the Prespa Agreement, former premiers Zoran Zaev and Alexis Tsipras, through the Zoran Zaev foundation and the Alexis Tsipras Institute, will organize in Athens a two-day international conference for peace and sustainable development, where Matthew Nimetz, the name talks mediator, will be presented with an award, MIA reports from Athens.

The conference, taking place on Monday and Tuesday, will feature eight panel discussions, including two panels focused on the Balkans, two on regional developments and the role of international organizations in promoting peace, two on the future of Europe and tackling of the far right, and one panel each on the climate crisis and the green agenda and one on the European and Greek economy.

It will bring together heads of international organizations, prime ministers, EU commissioners, top government officials, former presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers as well as party officials from the whole democratic spectrum with an accent on center left, left and progressive forces.

The country will be represented by ex-premiers Zoran Zaev and Vlado Buchkovski, former foreign minister Nikola Dimitrov and Venko Filipche in his capacity as director of the Zoran Zaev Foundation. 

Also, other participants include the EU’s special envoy for the Belgrade – Prishtina dialogue, Miroslav Lajchak, former French president Francois Hollande, Serbian prime minister Miloš Vučević, the ex-prime ministers of Sweden and Greece, Stefan Lofven and George Papandreou, former European Parliament president Martin Schulz, former foreign minister Nikos Kotzias, Albania’s Europe Minister Igli Hasani, and the mayors of Athens and Istanbul, whereas former US ambassador to Greece, Geoffrey Pyatt will join the conference online.

UN Secretary General António Guterres will address the event via video message ahead of the presentation of the Prespa Award to the UN special envoy in the negotiations, Matthew Nimetz, for his contribution to the Prespa Agreement. 

Later in the day, Nikola Dimitrov and Nikos Kotsias, the signatories of the Prespa Agreement, together with the mediator and enlargement commissioner, Johannes Hahn, who will join the event online, will discuss the negotiations, the implementation of the treaty six years later and whether the Prespa Agreement is a model for peaceful settlement of disputes. This evening, Tsipras and Zaev will discuss the Prespa Agreement. 

Last Friday, former Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras promoted via Facebook the new institute bearing his name before the launch of an official site. The international conference is its first public event. 

In a joint op-ed for Euractiv last week, former prime ministers Zoran Zaev and Alexis Tsipras called on the European Union and the international community to make it clear that observing the Prespa Agreement is the only road of the country in the EU accession process, pre-accession support and economic mobilization.