Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his government survived a confidence vote in parliament on Wednesday. It now paves the way for parliament to ratify an accord he agreed last year with neighboring country FYR Macedonia (FYROM), to end a long dispute over Macedonia's name. The victory has also averted the prospect of a snap election.
Tsipras narrowly won the support of 151 lawmakers in the 300 seat parliament, meeting the threshold he had set to avoid calling an early election.
The Prime Minister said the win was a vote in favor of stability. Tsipras told journalists: "Today the Greek parliament gave a vote of confidence in stability. We received a vote of confidence with our only concern to continue to address the needs and interests of the Greek people."
Tsipras called the confidence vote on Sunday after his right-wing coalition partner Panos Kammenos resigned in protest over the accord.
For decades, Athens has been opposed to FYROM using "Macedonia" as its official country name because it believes that Skopje may present territorial claims to a northern region in Greece called by the same name.
In 2018, Greece and FYROM reached an agreement to rename the country the Republic of Northern Macedonia.
However, opponents of the agreement say the new name, is an attempt to appropriate Greek identity.
