A source from the Macedonian nationalist conservatives said on Thursday that, following Sundays’ failed referendum, the Skopje – Athens agreement on a new name for the former Yugoslav Republic was “dead”, the FoNet news agency reported.

The opposition VMRO-DPMNE party demanded that an interim government be formed ahead of an early general election expected in November.

The source told the Associated Press that such a move would secure a fair and democratic vote, only day after  German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party called on its Macedonian sister organisation to support the June deal between Skopje and Athens to change the country’s name into North Macedonia and thus open the doors to Euro-Atlantic integration.

The Sunday’s referendum failed to attract enough voters, mostly due to the VMRO-DPMNE call for a boycott.

However, those who voted overwhelmingly supported the agreement.

The referendum is not legally binding, so the ball is thrown to the parliament where Prime Minister Zoran Zaev’s coalition has 71 deputies, nine short of the two-thirds majority of 80 needed for the constitutional changes that would enable further processes to be passed.

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