Hague court to announce decision on Macedonia’s lawsuit against Greece in early December

The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) on December 5 will deliver its judgement in Macedonia’s case against Greece for breaching the 1995 Bilateral Interim Accord by blocking country’s accession to NATO at a summit in Bucharest in 2008.

The court has an established practice to notify the two parties in a dispute that a final decision has been reached two weeks prior to its delivery.

Macedonia has sought the court to order Greece to abide by its obligations stemming from the Interim Accord and not to block Macedonia’s membership into international organisations, the country’s legal representatives in The Hague proceedings have said.

Athens founded its defence claiming that there was no veto at the Bucharest summit, but a consensus reached between NATO member countries to delay Macedonia’s accession until a solution to the name dispute was found. Greece asked the ICJ to declare that the case didn’t fall within its jurisdiction.