Deputy Foreign Minister Dimitris Kourkoulas met on Friday, 10 January, with a delegation from the Conference of European Churches (CEC), including CEC Vice-President Metropolitan Emmanuel of France, Secretary General Dr. Guy Liagre, and the head of the Church and State Committee, Frank Dieter Fischbach. Mr. Kourkoulas also met with a delegation from the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE), which was headed by the Archbishop of Catholics in Athens, Nikolaos Foskolos, and included COMECE Secretary General Father Patrick H. Daly, advisor on Education, Culture and Youth issues Dr. Michael Kuhn, a representative of the Evangelical Church, and the spokesperson for the office of the Archbishop of Athens in Brussels, Archimandrite Ignatios Sotiriadis.
Mr. Kourkoulas briefed the delegations in depth on the priorities of the Hellenic Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The two sides discussed issues of social cohesion, social exclusion, combatting unemployment and youth unemployment, EU immigration policy, refugees, and human trafficking.
Also discussed were the Churches’ assistance in the efforts to confront the social crisis, and the need to strengthen the social dimension of the European social model.
January 12, 2014