The Minister of National Defence Dimitris Avramopoulos made yesterday a one-day official visit to Latvia.
Mr. Avramopoulos was received by the President of the Republic of Latvia Andris Berzins, who asked him to convey his congratulations to Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, as well as to the Greek Government, on their success to lead Greek economy to recovery and restore Greece back to capital markets.
The Minister of National Defence also met with the Latvian Minister of Defence Raimonds Vejonis. Mr. Avramopoulos was accompanied by the Chairman of the Hellenic Parliament’s Standing Committee on National Defence and Foreign Affairs Konstantinos Tsiaras, and the Chief of the Hellenic National Defence General Staff, General Michail Kostarakos.
The Greek and the Latvian Defence Ministers, after their meeting, made the following statements:
D. AVRAMOPOULOS: My visit here today opened a new chapter in the relations between Latvia and Greece. I would like to thank my colleague for his warm hospitality because, among others, we had the opportunity to discuss about a great deal of topics which regard our cooperation within the EU and NATO.
Greece performs, at present, its duties as presiding country of the EU. In the context of its responsibilities, it develops a relation project with all European countries and, mostly, with those which lie on the European borderline, from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean.
With my counterpart, we discussed defence cooperation issues, in the fields of training, exchange of expertise and information, as well as education of our personnel. But the most important was that we examined strategically the evolving situation which regards directly the future of Europe (highlighting Ukraine and Syria).
We ended up in a number of conclusions. The Minister of Defence of Latvia will soon be invited to Athens, where we will sign a defence agreement which will cover the whole range of the topics we discussed about.
Moreover, at the presence of the Chairman of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Foreign Affairs of the Greek Parliament Mr. Tsiaras, it was also decided to invite the respective Latvian committee to Athens and thus develop a similar cooperation at a parliamentary level.
Apart from that and despite our main subjects being defence and politics, we extended our discussion also into other fields (tourism, financial and commercial relations) and we noted that our two countries can play a very important role in reinforcing the European cohesion.
Latvia is a small country, yet much modernised as far as its organisation is concerned. On the other side Greece, one of the oldest members of the European Union that played a decisive role in paving the European way for Latvia, with the experience and knowledge it has gained over these years, will be especially useful since the country that hosts us today will assume the European Presidency in six months.
It was a very useful – though short in time – visit and I wish to thank my colleague, Latvia’s Defence Minister for his cordiality, friendship and solidarity that prevailed in our meetings which, as I said earlier, introduces stronger bilateral relations in the imminent future.
Last, I considered it right to convey a message to our friendly people of Latvia. I would like to thank them through the Defence Minister and the President of the Republic of Latvia, whom I met shortly before for their solidarity during the difficult moments which our country and our people have been going through until recently in our effort to overcome the financial crisis.
R. VEJONIS: With my colleague from Greece we had a very fruitful meeting, during which we had the opportunity to discuss firstly the existing situation in Ukraine and also near our borders and, secondly, ways to improve our cooperation in the context of NATO but also at bilateral level, between Latvia and Greece.
At bilateral level, we will soon sign an agreement between our two Ministries, which will prepare the ground for further cooperation.