 According to the newspaper coverage of the previous 2013-negotiations, Macedonia had favored using the name "Upper Republic of Macedonia" while Greece insisted it could only approve "Republic of Upper Macedonia", while disagreement also existed towards the scope of using the new official name—with Macedonia only being ready to accept its use in bilateral affairs involving Greece and not ready to accept the Greek demand of using it "obligatory for all purposes".After successive defeats of the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE in both the general and municipal elections of the Republic of Macedonia, and the arrival to power of the pro-solution coalition led by the SDSM and DIU, efforts for the resolution of the naming dispute gained a new momentum, with the new Prime Minister Zoran Zaev vowing his determination to resolve the decades-old dispute with Greece.Efforts between the governments of the two countries for resolving the name dispute intensified, and on 17 January 2018, UN-sponsored negotiations had resumed.