Statement of Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs Miltiadis Varvitsiotis following today’s meeting of the EU General Affairs Council (Brussels, 25 February 2020)

As Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs Miltiadis Varvitsiotis announced in his statement following today's meeting of the EU General Affairs Council (GAC), two decisions of importance to Greece were approved by the GAC.

The first concerns the new enlargement framework aimed at unblocking the accession process for the Western Balkans, and the second concerns the provision for protection of stolen cultural assets that is included in the EU-UK negotiation package.

He made the following statement:

“At today’s meeting of the General Affairs Council, we discussed two topics of great importance to Greece, both of which received approval. The first concerns the enlargement process. Following the successful Thessaloniki conference, today we decided that we agree on the new framework proposed by the European Commission to finally unblock the accession negotiations so that they can start following the March Summit Meeting with the Western Balkans. For us, the fact that good neighbourly relations are now very high on the European Union’s negotiation agenda with all of the countries of the Western Balkans is a point we keenly support.

The second issue concerns Brexit, and for the first time the matter of protection of stolen cultural assets is being included in the negotiating package. Mr. Barnier has taken on a difficult role. He has to keep the European Union strong in these negotiations with Great Britain. And for us it is very important that, beyond the designations of origin for our products, we are adding cultural assets. We believe that these negotiations can make Europe even stronger.”