The former Minister of Defense Panos Kammenos, who was a fervent opponent of reaching an agreement between Greece and North Macedonia in order to solve the name dispute, in many of his public appearances he acted bitterly against North Macedonia and its new name that contains the word “Macedonia”.
In one of his efforts to back up his claims, he even said that Great Britain had to change its name into the United Kingdom as a result of a French veto for its entrance into the European Economic Community, a precursor of the current European Union, because of Brittany, the region in France.
The Greek service for checking media facts “Ellinika Hoaxes” has revealed the untruthfulness of his claim.
“If Skopje wants a solution, it will have to do what England did in order to join the European Economic Community and on request by the French President de Gaulle, to change its name from Great Britain to United Kingdom” said Kammenos.
But did it really happen like that? Ellinika Hoaxes published Nikos Saradakos’ text which completely denies these findings. Saradakos actually wrote about an identical statement dated from 2008 by Georgios Karatzaferis, but the arguments were twisted to go in favor of Kammenos’ statement.
The first argument that refers to a reply by two Greek politicians is that their claim is half true.
it is not true that the French President de Gaulle opposed to Great Brittain joining the EEC due to its name.
“de Gaulle was worried about the consequences if Great Britain joined the EEC’s joint agricultural policy, and was also worried that the US influence in Europe would increase through Britain,” wrote Saradakos.
He stressed that the name United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland exists since 1927 as a modification to United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, that was used from 1801 until 1927 when today’s Ireland claimed its independence and Northern Ireland remained under British rule.
