A long-awaited and oft-cited telephone discussion between the prime ministers of Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYRoM) finally took place on Monday afternoon, given that the two countries' foreign ministers have wrapped up negotiations over the thorny "name issue" in the previous period.
The telephone contact between Alexis Tsipras and Zoran Zaev was, according to sources that relayed the news, positive and lasted roughly one hour. The same government sources merely said the two leaders will again speak by phone on Tuesday.
The leftist-rightist coalition government in Athens has invested significant political "capital" in resolving the bilateral difference, which dates to the early 1990s, and is eager to point to a foreign policy success, given that it is now consistently trailing the main opposition party New Democracy (ND) party in all mainstream opinion polls and is faced with another round of austerity measures at the beginning of the year.
