Dr Anastasios Panagiotelis and Dr Vasilis Sarafidis, the Australian Institute of Macedonian Studies. In her recent SBS opinion piece, “The Business of Greece and Macedonia” Perth MP Alannah MacTiernan grossly misrepresents the official stance of Greek governments, both past and present.  By propagating a number of falsehoods she unfairly depicts Greece as a recalcitrant aggressor. By responding to her article we provide a more accurate account of this complex issue. Ms MacTiernan characterises Greece’s diplomatic stance towards its northern neighbour as “trenchant opposition to the very existence of the Republic of Macedonia”.  This is patently false since Greece is the largest investor in FYROM, as Ms MacTiernan herself recognises. For instance in 2007, 17 of the 20 most sizeable investments in FYROM were financed with Greek capital, while roughly 20,000 (about 6% of the workforce) were employed in Greek-owned enterprises. Furthermore, according to statistics published by authorities in FYROM, in 2013 almost 28% of the total foreign direct investment in FYROM came from Greece.  Despite unprecedented economic hardship, Greece continues to invest in FYROM, hardly the act of a nation that opposes the very existence of its neighbour. Ms MacTiernan’s misrepresentation of Greece’s motives moves into truly absurd territory when she raises an old canard “that there were negotiations between the then-Greek Government and Serbian war criminal Slobodan Milosevic to suppress the opportunities for Macedonians to fuel division in the country”.  Although former Greek PM Konstantinos Mitsotakis did claim that Slobodan Milosevic made such overtures towards Greece, the purpose of Mitsotakis’ statement was to declare that his government unequivocally rejected any actions that would destabilise FYROM. The recent history of the naming issue is and remains controversial, however, Ms MacTiernan once again is guilty of a number of falsehoods here.  Greece did not “impose the absurd name The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, nor do Greeks refer to citizens of the country as “FYROMians”. Rather, the name “FYROM” arose from Resolution 817/1993 of the UN Security Council as a mutually agreed but temporary solution to distinguish the former member of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from three major administrative regions in northern Greece, namely “Western Macedonia”, “Central Macedonia”, and “Eastern Macedonia”. The latter three regions are part of the geocode standard developed by European Union and by far constitute the largest part of the geographical area of “Macedonia”. There are 2.5 million people living in the Greek region of Macedonia nowadays, and they proudly identify themselves as both Greeks and Macedonians (Macedonian Hellenes). The intent of the UN resolution was for both parties to negotiate and compromise on a name which respected both sides’ claims to a Macedonian identity.  The ascension of FYROM into NATO and the EU,...