Efforts to promote liberal politics in the Balkans will be set back if Macedonia is not offered a firm prospect of Nato and EU membership next year, the leaders of the country’s fledgling government have warned.

Radmila Šekerinska, Macedonia’s deputy prime minister and defence minister, told the Guardian: “The next year is crucial. We need to show that there are developments – people do not expect everything to be solved tomorrow – but they expect progress because we have been stuck for 10 years. What happens will create either inspiration or frustration right across the Balkans.”

She said the six-month-old government, one of the few social-democratic success stories in Europe, wants to find a way to end the 26-year dispute with Greece over the name the Republic of Macedonia is given in international forums. Since it became independent in 1991, the country has been referred to internationally as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).

In one of the more obscure but emotive European disputes, Greece has been blocking Macedonia’s push for Nato membership since 2008, claiming that by using the name Macedonia, Skopje has been hijacking Greek history and culture, pointing to the erection of a statue of Alexander the Great in 2011 and naming Skopje airport after the ancient Greek warrior.

Greece also fears that Macedonia, with a population of 2 million people, has irredentist territorial ambitions over the Greek province of the same name.

“No one in Macedonia has territorial pretensions, literally no one. It is laughable,” Šekerinska said. “The only time when we might occupy Greece is when we pour to the Greek beaches as tourists.”

The Social Democratic Union of Macedonia is presenting a new face of the country to Europe after taking power in June following a prolonged impasse, a violent invasion of parliament by extreme nationalists and revelations in 2015 of mass wiretapping by the secret police to defend corrupt business interests.

The government has set about making judicial changes, ensuring fairer funding of the media, placing democratic controls on the secret police and trying to encourage ethnic Albanians into the SDSM. It has also ended years of stony relations with Bulgaria by signing a friendship treaty and started to cool ethnic tensions by changing language laws to allow greater use of Albanian.

In local elections in October, despite a personal campaign appearance by the rightwing Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, the conservatives were crushed as voters punished the old regime. After ruling Macedonia for 10 years, the VMRO-DPMNE won five out of 81 municipalities.

Supporters of the now ruling Social Democratic Union of Macedonia hold a rally before the 2016 election. Photograph: Georgi Licovski/EPA

Šekerinska, a victim of state intimidation in the past, said: “It was proof that the support conservatives had enjoyed was the product of a captive state, that people feared them and felt under pressure.

“But it was also [an] endorsement of our political leadership and the patience with which we had handled the crisis and the violence.”

She said she saw a link between the resolution of the name issue and Macedonia’s application to join the EU.

“Most of the people will accept a decent and rational compromise, so long as they see the solution opens prospects for the future and it does not threaten our identity, pride or ethnic characteristics,” Šekerinska said.

“For there to be any kind of sustainable solution, we have to confirm to our citizens that our Nato and EU membership goals are realistic.”

She said a committee had been established to redefine Skopje “as a city of people and modern life, not a city of statues and empty monuments. It will be a strong message that this statue fight is no longer Macedonia’s policy.”

Talks aimed at finding a new name have restarted under the auspices of Matthew Nimetz, 78, a diplomat who has been working sporadically to resolve the issue for 23 years.

Šekerinska said: “We want a solution that will not harm Greek interests or endanger Macedonian identity. But it takes two to tango, and we hope the Greek side will be equally committed.”