“Good morning and many happy returns to all of you. I am very pleased to be seeing you once again in this friendly space that is adorned with mementos of the Hellenic Presidency of the Council of the European Union, as the boats were moved here, from Zappeion, for permanent exhibition.
I wish each of you and your families health and success in achieving your goals on a personal, familial, official and any other level.
The year started in the midst of a run-up to elections. It is the obligation of the public administration, of the whole state mechanism and mainly of the Foreign Ministry – its Central Service and its Missions Abroad – to perform duties during the pre-election period with complete political neutrality, guided only by the defence of national interests and the promotion of Greek foreign and security policy.
On the occasion of the cutting of the New Year’s Cake, I would like once again to express my warm thanks, my great satisfaction at the high level of training, professionalism and dedication to your duties.
The fact that I am surrounded by services and personnel of such a level and such a long tradition is very important to me. This is not the time to refer to what happened in 2014 and to the challenges 2015 will bring – each of you is handling certain issues in your field. But the sum of these issues and the added value that arises from the combination of various interventions and policies is much greater that one might surmise with the naked eye.
Greek society, public opinion, focuses mainly on the issue of the economy, on the exit from the memorandum and the crisis, on planning for the next day, on the major concerns of every household, every business, every citizen. But the foreign policy issues, national issues, issues of national security, are also extremely critical by definition and are in a very delicate phase that, with your experience, you are monitoring, I imagine, in all their subtleties.
For myself, for the Deputy Ministers and the Secretaries General, as well as for all of you, it is vital that we make all the necessary moves as quietly, speedily and effectively as possible to avoid crises and, at the same time, safeguard national interests on a long-term and strategic basis, while concurrently, and to the extent possible, we also need to cover any strategic gap that appears, regardless of the point in time when it is created, and this is also of very great importance.
I will stop here in terms of substance, and I will close, again, with my wishes, which I also express on behalf of Deputy Minister Kourkoulas, on behalf of Mr. Gerontopoulos – who is absent because he is in his electoral region, but I am certain that he would be very happy to express his wishes to you. And of course the Secretary General and the Secretary General for International Economic Relations share my wishes to you. I would ask that you also convey these wishes to your colleagues who are not here with us today. And I would also ask, via the competent directorates and, mainly, with the attention of the Secretary General, that our Missions Abroad be informed as to the climate at the cutting of the New Year’s Cake, because they are naturally in our thoughts now, as they perform their duties under the conditions in given locales.
May you be well, healthy and strong.
Thank you very much.”
January 9, 2015