Dear Ian,
It’s a great pleasure to welcome you today in Athens, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Hellenic Republic. This visit adds to the frequent visits and contacts between our two countries.
Allow me to recall my own visit to Valletta last October. These frequent visits reflect, of course, the strong will of both countries, Malta and Greece, to strengthen our relations.
It would be an oversight on my part if I did not thank you again for your presence yesterday at the event to present our candidacy for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council for the 2025 – 2026 term.
I’d like to say that your presence is of particular importance to us. Malta is a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for the 2023 – 2024 term and of course, our countries have developed close cooperation within this International Organization, which we believe would strengthen even further if we succeed in getting elected, as we are confident that we will be.
This cooperation is beneficial for addressing common challenges, safeguarding shared values, and upholding the United Nations Charter, which both countries serve with unwavering dedication.
Today we discussed the strengthening, the deepening of our bilateral cooperation. We can only benefit from this collaboration in areas such as tourism and shipping. We are very closely linked in these areas.
There are far too many Greek-owned ships flying the Maltese flag. Just before, we signed together the Protocol of Cultural Cooperation, which will enable us to promote our relations in many fields, including archaeology, academic research, and entertainment.
Our trade relations have been enhanced.
Furthermore, we had the opportunity, as is evident, to address a great number of regional problems, including the situation in Libya, the Eastern Mediterranean, Tunisia, and broader problems.
I asked for Malta’s cooperation for the 9th “Our Ocean Conference”, which we will host next year. In 2017, you, Malta, hosted it. And I’d like to thank you once more for your willingness to share with us the know-how, which you already have, in organizing this Conference. A Conference that we have agreed to organize with John Kerry and USA.
Of course, we discussed the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the unacceptable attempt to change the borders by force.
We talked about our common shared obligation to support Ukraine at all levels. But, of course, we also agreed in a broader context that revisionism has no place in modern times. It must be condemned.
But we also agreed that the European Union must also pay attention to the Mediterranean. Ukraine is extremely significant. However, the European Union must have a comprehensive policy.
The Mediterranean Sea is crucial. The northern African coast must not be overlooked in any way. If we ignore it, it will cause enormous problems for Europe in a variety of sectors, including migration and terrorism- we have touched on them. As a result, Europe’s southern borders need our attention as well.
We talked about the International Law of the Sea, about UNCLOS. We shared our experiences. Aside from this, we also discussed my view that the crisis in Sudan, despite the extremely adverse consequences for the local population, European citizens and all citizens who are there, is or could be an opportunity to step up our efforts to create a permanent EU force deployment scheme. Specifically for the evacuation of EU nationals.
I criticized the day before yesterday in Brussels and during our discussion in the Council, the inability of the EU to organize a joint operation to evacuate our citizens from Sudan.
Additionally, I would like to mention that Greece is currently making every effort to evacuate its own citizens from Khartoum as well as all other European citizens that we are able to assist.
Yesterday I had the opportunity to receive here at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Romanian and Finnish citizens, who had arrived in Athens on a Greek aircraft. And it will be a great pleasure for me to have a Hellenic aircraft carrying Maltese citizens or people connected with Malta to Athens.
It goes without saying that we are doing everything we can and will do everything we can to assist not only Greek citizens, but also citizens of friendly countries and people related to friendly countries, notably European countries like Malta.
I’d also like to tell you in a personal way that I feel particularly close to Malta and its citizens. My homeland is Corfu, architecturally, has very strong similarities with Malta and Valletta, a walled Mediterranean city.
There are also at least 3.5 thousand people of Maltese origin living in Corfu, many of them are my friends and allow me to confess that they have always voted for me by an overwhelming majority, for which I am particularly grateful.
So, it is a great pleasure to have you with us today, I hope we can continue our regular contacts in all the areas we have had the opportunity to touch on and agree that we can deepen our relations.
Once again, thank you very much for being here today.