D. AVRAMOPOULOS: I am particularly glad to welcome my friend and counterpart, Nebojsa RODIC, Serbia’s Defence Minister, at the Ministry of National Defence today.
It is known that Greece and Serbia are two neighbouring countries with very strong and deep historical ties.
Our relations are based on mutual confidence, respect, solidarity and friendship.
And our wish as well as the Serbian government’s wish is to widen and further reinforce our cooperation in all fields of activity.
As I was given the opportunity to state during the preceding talks: Greece constantly and faithfully supports Serbia’s European perspective.
I remind you that the negotiations for Serbia’s access to the European Union officially began on January 21, during the Greek presidency of the EU council.
Over the last years, Greece has supported and will keep supporting Serbia faithfully in its significant national matters. As I had the opportunity to tell the Minister too, our position about Kosovo is in accordance with our positive, constructive role in Western Balkans and is guided by the principles of good neighbouring relations and regional cooperation. We used to believe and we do believe that South-Eastern Europe may and must evolve into an oasis of security, stability, cooperation for every people. And this is the policy that Greece has been serving faithfully over all these years.
During our today’s talks, we examined every potential manner to further enhance our bilateral cooperation in the field of defence.
We particularly focused on the defence industry, a matter which, as it is known, will concern also the South-Eastern Europe Defence Ministerial to be held in Athens within the next two months.
We have the experience, the know-how, the infrastructure and we believe that it would be very useful for the defence system of Serbia, as well as of the countries of our region, in general.
This is another message we want to send today to everybody:
Moreover, a message of peace and stability to South-Eastern Europe, all over the Balkans, as well as of our determination to cooperate more closely in deepening, widening and reinforcing our bilateral relations in the field of defence and not only.
I am sure, I am convinced that the enhancement of our bilateral relations will open new perspectives for security and prosperity, not only for the citizens of our two countries, but for the citizens of the wider region of South-Eastern Europe as well.
Dear Nebojsa,
I wish to thank you personally and your delegation that accompanies you for the very useful, cordial, friendly, sincere, fruitful talks we have had today. I want you to know that we feel respect and sincere friendship towards your people and your country and I would like to ask you to convey this message to your government.
I am looking forward to our future cooperation, as well as to reinforcing our own personal friendly relations, to the benefit of the task we have been assigned by our countries and always to a common end: to establish peace, security and cooperation in the wider region of the much tormented Balkans.
I gladly accepted your invitation, just as you accepted mine, to participate in the South-Eastern Europe Defence Ministerial which will be held in Athens in about two months, so that we will be able to share these ideas, these concepts and policies we both share now with our colleagues of other neighbouring countries.
Minister,
Thank you again for your visit and I ask you to have the floor.
N. RODIC (informal translation from Serbian):
Dear colleagues, Your Excellency Minister,
I would like on this occasion to thank you for your cordial welcome to a magnificent Athens. I must tell you that I feel I am among sincere friends and partners. We, in Serbia, feel that Greece is an honest friend.
This visit takes place during the Greek Presidency of the European Union with which Serbia recently started a negotiation process. I would like once more to stress my warmest thanks for Greece’s support to Serbia in its way towards the European Union and express my wish for the Presidency to be absolutely successful, at this difficult time of the financial crisis which Greece goes through.
I would like to note that we had successful talks which – as I may say – are of strategically significant for the future relations between the Armed Forces of the Republic of Serbia and the Hellenic Republic. The talks we had can be summarised in our decision to reinforce the bilateral relations in more fields of cooperation.
In this fruitful discussion I conducted with Mr. Avramopoulos we agreed to fulfil the tasks we have been committed to. We will sign a technical agreement on the use of the multilateral cooperation in the naval sector for the transport of Serbian forces to peace support missions.
The Serbian Army becomes constantly a more respectable participant in peace keeping missions throughout the world.
We are considering the participation of our officers in the European Operation ATALANTA off the Horn of Africa.
We significantly promote the exchange of officers for undergraduate or post-graduate studies in the Higher Military Education Institutions in Greece.
It is worth mentioning that, out of the members of the delegation, three general officers and the General himself speak Greek and that your new Chief of the Hellenic Army General Staff speaks Serbian. This increases confidence and promotes communication and confidence between us, and it helps us assume common initiatives.
We also see Serbia participating in European formations. By a decision to be made after the elections of March in my country, we will make the decision for the operational participation of Serbian units. This should bring a great benefit for our army, the European Union and a contribution to the common defence policy.
Over the next period, we will try to find new cooperation models in the field of defence industry, as Mr.Avramopoulos said too, which is of great significance for the two countries, taking into account the financial crisis we are going through and our common effort to secure employment for both the personnel of the Armed Forces and the civilians who work in these sectors of the economy.
Dear Mr. Avramopoulos, Dear Minister,
Apart from our good cooperation in the political, economic and military areas, I would like particularly to thank you for the Hellenic Armed Forces’ supporting and attending the annual ceremonies in the Serbian military cemeteries in Thessaloniki and Corfu; and for your readiness to accept our representative who serves as an observer in the international unit, in Larissa.
I would like to ask all reporters from Greece to convey the Christian devotion of the Republic of Serbia to the memory of the 358 Greek soldiers who were buried in the city of Pilot.
I would like once more to thank you for your invitation to visit your great country – which hundreds of thousands of Serbs visit every year and enjoy their vacation – at this important moment when Greece presides over the EU, which Serbia tends to accede to and it naturally and certainly belongs to.
Minister, be sure that you will always have an honest friend and partner, ready for the common reconstruction and the future of Europe, our region, and the future of our children.
Thank you very much, my dear and respectable friend.