In an interview today on ERT’s ‘Europe’ show, with journalist Eva Boura, Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs Miltiadis Varvitsiotis spoke of the roads opening up in Greek economic diplomacy following the visit of the Chinese President and the Greek government’s programme for promoting Greece in new markets.
As Mr. Varvitsiotis stressed, the Chinese President’s visit was high level, given that he was accompanied by high-ranking government and party officials, and prominent, iconic Chinese entrepreneurs. “The strategic partnership with China bolsters our country’s prestige and puts us within a framework of economic players,” the Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs noted, adding that the Greek government’s goal is for various Chinese company’s to establish themselves here, rendering Greece a gateway for distribution of their products in Europe.
In this context, he stressed that Greece is not looking only to China for investments, but is opening its doors to the U.S., Europe and other global markets. “We want to have economic and trade relations with all of the major powers so that we can protect the country and promote the multifaceted relations we want to have,” he stated.
Regarding the European dimension of the migration issue, Mr. Varvitsiotis pointed to the important contribution Dimitris Avramopoulos made, as Migration Commissioner, to managing the migration crisis. Specifically, he underscored that Mr. Avramopoulos defended the country against any possibility of losing its Schengen membership for being unable to deal with migration flows over the past five years, and he highlighted that the outgoing Commissioner has left the new Commissioner a number of complete proposals on how we can move ahead on shaping a common European asylum policy.
Finally, Mr. Varvitsiotis referred to the major challenge the new European Commission is facing. “In the European elections, people all over the Union voted for more Europe. The new Commission has to fulfil this mandate with a de facto smaller budget, due to the UK’s withdrawal from the EU,” he noted, going on to stress that a battle is being fought in Europe for a budget with increased contributions from the member states – increased contributions that would allow for adequate funding of the policies being talked about in Europe: migration and environment policies, and the cohesion and common agricultural policies. “Our partners need to understand that we have to pay more if we want more Europe,” he stated.
November 16, 2019