Prespa agreement  The Prespa agreement (, ), also known as the Prespes agreement, Prespa accord or Treaty of Prespa, is an agreement reached on 12 June 2018 between Greece ("First Party") and the Republic of Macedonia ("Second Party"), under the United Nations' auspices, resolving a long-standing dispute over the latter's name. Signed beside Lake Prespa from which it took its name, and ratified by the parliaments of both countries on 25 January 2019, it went into force on 12 February 2019 when the two countries notified the UN of the deal's completion, following the ratification of the NATO accession protocol for North Macedonia on 8 February. It replaces the interim accord of 1995 and sees the country's constitutional name, then Republic of Macedonia, changed to Republic of North Macedonia . The Prespa agreement is the short name for the deal, named after the location it was signed, Lake Prespa. Its full name is Final Agreement for the settlement of the differences as described in the United Nations Security Council Resolutions 817 (1993) and 845 (1993), the termination of the Interim Accord of 1995, and the establishment of a Strategic Partnership between the Parties. Ever since the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, the use of the name "Macedonia" had been disputed between the southeastern European countries of Greece and the Republic of Macedonia (which is now North Macedonia). The dispute arose from the ambiguity in nomenclature between the former Yugoslav state, the adjacent Greek region of Macedonia, and the ancient kingdom of Macedon. Citing historical and irredentist concerns, Greece opposed the use of the name "Macedonia" by the Republic of Macedonia without a geographical qualifier like "Northern" or "Upper" for use "by all ... and for all purposes". As approximately 2 million ethnic Greeks identify themselves as Macedonians who typically view themselves as being unrelated to the ethnic Macedonians, Greece further objected to the use of the term "Macedonian" for the neighboring country's largest ethnic group and its language. The Republic of Macedonia was accused of appropriating symbols and figures that are historically considered part of Greek culture, such as the Vergina Sun and Alexander the Great, and of promoting the irredentist concept of a United Macedonia, which involves territorial claims on Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, and Serbia. Prior to the Prespa agreement, international organizations provisionally referenced the Republic of Macedonia as "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (sometimes abbreviated as "FYROM").