Macedonia deal: police deploy ahead of Greek parliament vote

About 1,500 police officers took up positions around Athens Thursday ahead of demonstrations opposing Greece‘s ratification of an agreement with Macedonia to normalize relations after decades of strain.

A four-day parliamentary debate was due to end late Thursday night with a vote that would finalize plans by Greece’s neighbor to change its name to North Macedonia and further its bid to join NATO.

Protesters from the Greek Communist Party draped two giant banners opposing the deal over the walls of the ancient Acropolis early Thursday. A Communist Party-backed union was planning a protest near the U.S. Embassy, while a separate rally was planned outside parliament Thursday evening to coincide with the parliamentary debate and vote.

A similar rally on Sunday by tens of thousands of protesters outside parliament turned violent, with demonstrators pelting riot police with Molotov cocktails, rocks, paint and metal bars. Police responded with heavy use of tear gas.

In northern Greece, hundreds of farmers and other local residents arrived in cars at Evzones, Greece’s main border crossing with Macedonia, blocking traffic despite a heavy police presence. Authorities were diverting traffic to two other border crossings, which remained open. Trucks were still able to cross at Evzones, although large tail-backs were developing.

“We came here to protest on the border, to try and shut it, in order for this betrayal not to pass,” said Thomas Karytidis, president of a local farmers’ union.

The town of Polykastro, the closest to the border on the Greek side, shut down all municipal services for two hours in a symbolic show of opposition, while residents and schools held a protest outside the town hall.

“Flags are flying at half-staff, the (church) bells were ringing mournfully because we don’t want this deal to go through,” said local mayor Christos Gountenoudis.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ government needs support from up to six opposition lawmakers to get the required 151 votes in the 300-member parliament for the agreement to be ratified. He recently lost his parliamentary majority after his junior coalition partner, the right-wing Independent Greeks party, pulled out of the government due to objections over the name deal.

Polls show that at least two in three Greeks oppose the deal, with sentiment against the agreement particularly high in northern Greece where lawmakers have come under intense pressure to vote against it.

In an attack potentially linked with the agreement, arsonists tried to set fire to the home of a lawmaker with the governing Syriza party in the northern town of Yiannitsa late Wednesday.

Nobody was injured, and the fire service said minor damage was caused.

The lawmaker, Theodora Tzakri, said her family had been at home at the time of the petrol bomb attack. She blamed far-right activists opposed to the deal with Macedonia.

Opponents argue that the deal doesn’t end a potential territorial threat to Greece’s northern region, also called Macedonia. Greece has been blocking its neighbor’s efforts to join NATO for years over the dispute.

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Costas Kantouris in Evzones, Greece and Nicholas Paphitis and Elena Becatoros in Athens contributed.