FT — Days before Greece is called on to play a central role in an ambitious new EU plan to contain its migrant crisis, the country’s well-regarded migration minister is at risk of losing his job.
Yannis Mouzalas found himself at the centre of a political storm after he referred to the country’s northern neighbour as “Macedonia” — its internationally recognised name but one that is disputed by Greeks.
Mr Kammenos stuck to his position on Wednesday at a meeting on the issue with Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister, but stopped short of threatening to walk out of the coalition.
“Independent Greeks support the government but not the migration minister,” he told reporters after the meeting.
Mr Mouzalas quickly apologised for what he said was a “slip made in the course of a discussion” during a live interview on Tuesday with Greece’s Skai television.
Greece’s leftwing Syriza government defended Mr Mouzalas in a statement, saying it was “irresponsible and hypocritical” to undermine a minister who struggles daily with the refugee problem.
A senior Syriza official said the minister retained the government’s confidence and would attend Thursday’s EU summit on the refugee crisis, seen as critical to sealing an agreement with Ankara to return thousands of migrants from the Greek islands to Turkey.
But according to Greek officials, Mr Mouzalas was sufficiently concerned about his status to ask Mr Tsipras whether he should proceed with the Brussels trip. Mr Tsipras gave him the green light, but one official said his status will not be fully resolved until after the summit ends on Friday.
Mr Mouzalas, who formerly worked for the charity Doctors of the World, joined the government in August. An obstetrician, he has been credited with improving overcrowded facilities for refugees on the islands of Lesbos and Kos, the front lines of the migration crisis.
If the EU-Turkey deal is agreed at Thursday’s summit, then Greece will face enormous administrative challenges to process and house thousands of migrants and then ready them for a return to Turkey. Mr Mouzalas would shoulder much of the burden.
His slip of the tongue brought to the fore a naming dispute with Greece’s nationalist neighbour that is longstanding — and deeply felt among some nationalist Greeks.
The dispute is based on an assertion by Athens that its neighbour’s choice of name, made 25 years ago when it declared independence from the collapsing Yugoslav federation, reflects a territorial claim on Greece’s own region of Macedonia.
Greece insists on calling the country the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (Fyrom) or “Skopje” after its capital.
Even before Mr Mouzalas’s slip-up, feelings were running high in Athens over Macedonia’s decision last month to close its border with Greece, stranding a growing backlog of refugees and migrants at the overcrowded Idomeni camp and on the eastern Aegean Islands.
Bilateral talks on finding a name acceptable to both sides are held intermittently with a former US diplomat as mediator but have failed to produce a compromise.
