A Greek prosecutor on Saturday ordered an investigation into allegations of threats against lawmakers as well as bribes over an upcoming parliamentary vote to end a 27-year dispute with Macedonia, a judicial source said.
Macedonian lawmakers under heavy pressure from the US Embassy that included livestream of the actual vote to the US Ambassador’s office, blackmails and bribes ranging from 300,000 – 700,000 euros per MP voted to rename their country the Republic of North Macedonia despite huge opposition in the country.
In addition an investigation was launched in Greece after several newspapers reported the Tsipras government had paid millions of euros to Macedonian politicians Zaev, Dimitrov and Angjusev to sign the agreement, while the funds came from something called “the Soros budget” within the Greek Government which was dedicated only to Macedonia!
Now this highly contested “Agreement” needs backing from the Greek parliament to come into effect.
However just like in Macedonia, the proposal has been met with resistance by many in Greece, who object to its neighbor being called Macedonia because it has its own northern province of the same name that was renamed by Athens at the same time when Macedonia declared independence.
Ahead of the vote in Athens, two news websites alleged that a prominent member of Greece’s main opposition New Democracy party — which rejects the name deal — called on its members to phone MPs of the nationalist Independent Greeks (ANEL) party and urge them to vote against the agreement.
ANEL is the junior party in Greece’s ruling coalition and strongly opposes the name change, a rift that threatens to destabilise the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who helped broker the deal.
The New Democracy member allegedly revealed the personal mobile phone numbers of ANEL MPs.
Athens News Agency said the news reports prompted the preliminary investigation into the allegations.
The investigation, according to judicial sources, is looking into whether personal data was violated as part of the probe and what was said and offered in those texts.
ANEL leader Panos Kammenos, who is Tsipras’ defence minister, has threatened to pull out of the government when the deal comes to a vote, but some of his party’s MPs remain ambivalent.
Tsipras will have a crunch meeting with his coalition partner on Sunday morning in order to reach a make or break decision ahead of the vote.
If Kammenos refuses to back down, Tsipras hopes to rely on lawmakers from the small pro-EU To Potami party to get the agreement approved.
