The Greek foreign policy at the moment is trying to fix the broken reputation of the country but despite this, the attention of Athens' diplomacy is still very much focused towards their number one enemy, a neighboring country of 2-million people whose membership in EU and NATO has being hindered by Athens with all means necessary, reads an article titled ‘The Sin of Greece – History of a (Almost) Forgotten Exile’ published in German daily the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Deutsche Welle - Program in Macedonian Language reported an analysis of the Greek-Macedonian dispute from a historical point of view. According to DW, it's not the supposed 'name', rather the Macedonians in Greece that are the 'problem' for official Athens.

- The main reason Athenian diplomats get excited when the Macedonian minority is mentioned should be sought in the past. Forced ethnic expulsion happened in Greece in 1949, which is not really something that's beind discussed or reviewed until present day. Almost one century ago, in the First Balkan War Greece occupied a large part of Macedonia from the Ottoman Empire. The other part, the so-called Vardar Macedonia was annexed by Yugoslavia and only a small piece (‘Pirin Macedonia’) went to Bulgaria. The Greeks were a minority in most parts of the newly occupied territory. Especially the northwest border area towards Yugoslavia which was heavily populated by Slavic peasants. The majority of them remembering their oppression and abuse in Greece during the Greek civil war stood on the side of the communists and paid dearly for that. Tens of thousands were evicted from their homes, forced to run and were not allowed to ever return, reports Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

The article also notes that diplomacy between the two nations had recently become tense due to request by the Macedonian PM Nikola Gruevski (who himself has a family in present day Greece) to respect the rights of the Macedonian minority in Greece which was pointed out at the meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Skopje.