“Your excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thank you very much for being here, which highlights the importance that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wishes to place on deepening and improving our relations with the African countries.
Africa is arguably the continent of the 21st century. More births have already been recorded in Africa compared to the whole of Asia. And during this century, we may possibly be able to overcome historical injustices against the people of Africa, which commenced in the colonial past and the post-colonial era, as well as due to the fact that on many occasions the rich resources of the countries of Africa were always not exploited in favour of its people, but in favour of foreign interests. Even nowadays, Africa is not among the benefited continents of globalisation.
Our country supports the need for a fairer international economic order, without this sky-rocketing rise in inequalities, both within and among states. Specifically, we believe that the historical injustice against the people of Africa, which, to a great extent, burdens our continent, Europe, can be addressed politically and economically.
Our country has always enjoyed very good relations with the African counties, but not as intense with all of them. One can easily see that we have systematically cultivated our relations with Egypt and the Maghreb countries over time as well as lately. In addition, although we enjoy very good relations with the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa in terms of mutual support on many issues at a UN level and common views on most external policy issues, our political contacts are not as frequent or intense and our economic relations are not what they could have been.
I believe that our country, Greece, is a privileged country in the context of our common political home, the European Union, which can assist towards achieving the political goal I mentioned in the beginning, but also improve bilateral relations with other African countries, for the following self-evident reasons, which you are aware of and which I will simply remind you of.
The first reasons, which appear in History, were already mentioned in the very interesting talk by the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps of the African countries. Our country has historically cultivated relations with the African world. The sages of ancient Greece used to visit Egypt and recognised the excellence in wisdom of the Egyptian civilisation. The Hellenistic world and Byzantium had a steady presence in the African continent.
However, I do not want to refer only to the ancient and medieval history. What I consider a main advantage of our country against the countries of Africa is that we were never a colonial power. We had significant diaspora, to the extent that it continues to exist in many African countries to date. And the Greeks in these countries never established relations of power, but relations of harmonious coexistence with the people of Africa.
We can invest in these relations.
I don’t know how many of you know the reason why one of the central squares of Athens is called Abyssinia Square. After WW II, our country was in shambles from the conquest and the consequences of the war. We were very poor. Ethiopia – or Abyssinia as it was then called – decided to send humanitarian aid to the country. It sent a load of meat. In gratitude of this aid, Greece, and the City of Athens in particular, named one of the central squares of Athens Abyssinia Square.
I mentioned this to show that Africa is a continent with potential and power. A continent that we should not view with superiority, but, on the contrary, with humbleness, in view of the historical responsibility of the Europeans on many issues of their historical development, and with the clear intention of fostering relationships of equality with these countries.
So this is the context of the relations we would like to develop with Africa. It is part of the multilateral diplomacy our country has traditionally exercised, which our government has intensified lately, in the last four years of our administration.
We have a political home, the European Union. However, precisely due to our history and geopolitical position, evident if you can just look at the map, we are a natural bridge between Europe, Africa and Asia. We want to be a political bridge between our European political home and the Arab world, the world of Africa and, naturally, other large countries, such as China and Russia.
So in this context, we want to intensify our political contacts and improve the potential of our bilateral economic relations, bearing in mind, of course, that we are exiting the crisis and this will be a gradual development. Miracles do not happen from one day to the next.
There is an important acquis in place from the efforts of Terens Quick, who scoured Africa intensely and essentially visited quite a few countries which had not received a Greek Minister from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for many years, maybe decades. And for some of them, it was the first such visit. Obviously, these visits prepare the ground, but are not enough to achieve the goals I already mentioned.
Precisely for this reason, we are contemplating a restructuring of our diplomatic forces in Africa, starting at the level of economic diplomacy. Certain posts for special missions will be announced this week, so we can establish new commercial attaché offices in some African countries where there are none and where currently our presence is much weaker than the needs demand.
And I honestly reassure you that we will proceed with relevant plans both on a political and an economic level, precisely because it forms part of our aspiration in general to practice multilateral external policy, open to all directions, and precisely because we believe that we can perform this role not just for our country, but for the entire European Union.
Therefore, in view of these, I thank you for coming and I am certain that today’s event will further boost this common, I believe, goal to improve our bilateral relations.
Thank you very much.”
May 9, 2019