JOURNALIST: These are the first days of the Hellenic Presidency of the Council of the EU – defining moments for Greece as well as Europe – and we are looking forward to the promotion of major issues during this time. Let’s look in detail at these important issues, which the Greek government has set as the priorities of the Hellenic Presidency. Let’s start with the diptych of growth and unemployment. What will Greece do, on a European level, so that this diptych, these words, do not remain just wishful thinking?
E. VENIZELOS: I wish ANA-MPA a good year and success in meeting its goals for this year. The Hellenic Presidency is starting with very good omens, because Greece has a great deal of accumulated experience in exercising the Presidency of the Council of the EU. This Presidency of the first semester of 2014 is our fifth Presidency since we acceded to the then European Communities in 1981.
The Hellenic Presidencies are historically associated with great steps on the course of European integration, with major EU enlargement waves, and we are very well aware that the Presidency, as a European institution, must respond to the priorities of Europe’s societies.
The Presidency is not all-powerful. It has very specific capabilities – limited, but not negligible. The number-one problem for all European societies – whether for a country in crisis or an economically strong country, whether for a country like Greece or a country like Germany, is, without a doubt, the model for growth, competitiveness, ensuring satisfactory growth rates – because it doesn’t suffice just to be close to zero – and of course the even bigger problem for all European citizens is unemployment, whether because they are experiencing unemployment, or because they feel the threat of unemployment, and this concerns the young generation.
In Greece, we have unacceptably high levels of unemployment, brutally high levels of unemployment, particularly among the young. The European Council and the Council of Ministers have decided on a series of measures on unemployment, and of course they talk very frequently about growth and competitiveness. There are texts we have agreed on in Europe, there are decisions, but much more funding is needed from both the structural funds and the European Social Fund, as well as through the potential of the European Investment Bank or the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
So our goal is, within the various Council configurations – ECOFIN, the Social Affairs Council, the Council of Ministers for Competitiveness – to promote this unified outlook, this unified line, which says that we can help the real economy, the businesses, and finance these policies that have been announced. For example, the potential for every young person, as soon as they have finished school, to have access to the job market, whether through additional training, through an internship, through a job.
JOURNALIST: Will the promotion of the banking union play a role in this directions?
E. VENIZELOS: The crisis has shown – we experienced it here with the Greek banks – that the banks are a critical link between the financial sphere and the sphere of the real economy. The banks have to guarantee deposits, citizens’ savings, and finance businesses, investments, growth and jobs.
This is the critical level. If we want a Europe that is truly united, integrated, without internal inequalities, be must have a banking union, a single banking market. However, this does not mean just a single supervisory mechanism for the major European banks, the systemic banks, the important banks – the 130 banks, among which are four Greek banks. It doesn’t mean just a resolution mechanism, when some bank has a problem. It means a single deposit guarantee mechanism as well. Because the interest rates on deposits may be more alluring in one country, lower in others, but in the long term each depositor cares more about security than the interest rate. Thus, it is very important for there to be a single pan-European mechanism for guaranteeing deposits.
JOURNALIST: Another priority you have set is immigration. This is a large and complex issue, with humanitarian parameters, as well as with national security parameters, and because Greece is a gateway for immigrants entering Europe as a whole, it is now obvious that it can’t confront this on its own.
E. VENIZELOS: On immigration, the management of migration flows, there are great inequalities among the European countries. The legal framework itself – Dublin II – contains an inequality, because the main weight is borne by countries on Europe’s external borders.
Greece is one such country. The Mediterranean countries, the countries with long coastlines, like Greece, Italy, island countries like Malta and Cyprus, are under disproportionate pressure. The crisis in the Arab world, the Middle East and North Africa is generating new waves of refugees.
But behind the refugees who have a legal right to relocate, we also have organized illegal migration. And behind the humanitarian problem, as you said, there is a security problem, because you don’t know who it is who is entering the European space, and with what intentions they are entering the European space. We have taken many initiatives with Italy, with Malta, with the other Mediterranean countries. Right now there are mechanisms – Frontex, EUROSUR – that enable us to distribute the weight within Europe in a fair manner, but much more needs to be done.
You can see that, especially for a country like Greece – as well as for other, neighbouring countries, like Bulgaria, which is also facing a great deal of pressure on its land borders – this is a very large issue. So this is a priority that everyone accepts as being very critical, and it is an opportunity for our Presidency to strengthen and encourage all of the processes.
JOURNALIST: Are you collaborating with Italy – which will follow us in the Presidency – on this matter?
E. VENIZELOS: Our cooperation with Italy is general, because, coincidentally, Italy will hold the Presidency in the second half of 2014. Italy is a Mediterranean country that has many problems in common with Greece. For some time now, we have agreed to have the same priorities and formulate a Mediterranean Year, because we have two Presidencies and common goals – not just general goals, but very specific goals, with regard to the Adriatic-Ionian region, which we want to be declared a European macroregion. This means some additional potential for development, and of course we have our cooperation in the energy sector, which is very serious. The Trans Adriatic Pipeline also gives us added potential for cooperation with Italy and with the wider Adriatic-Ionian region.
JOURNALIST: My next question concerns the promotion of maritime policy, which means wealth and development, on the one hand, but, on the other hand, it brings us closer to the countries of North Africa, our maritime borders.
E. VENIZELOS: With the Middle East and North Africa, we have, in any case, very close relations – traditional, historical, economic. The EU’s Southern Neighbourhood is of very great importance to us, as it is for other countries. Lithuania, whose Presidency just ended, focused on the Eastern Neighbourhood – Ukraine, Armenia, etc. So we are putting emphasis on the Southern Neighbourhood and we are cultivating relations there, with the most useful example being, in recent months, the relationship we have formed with Egypt, which is useful in many ways to the whole region and to the whole Mediterranean.
But for a country like Greece – for whom the sea is a defining element of its persona, with the merchant shipping it has, with the tradition it has – maritime policy has to be a priority that overarches all the other priorities.
Maritime policy means growth and jobs and energy and environment and culture and tourism and spatial planning. It means implementation of international law, exploitation of maritime zones, as provided for by international law, so we have Blue Growth, maritime development, which is also a basic element of the European growth model. It’s just that Europe has to realize that it is also southern and Mediterranean.
JOURNALIST: This year marks 100 years since the outbreak of World War I, and it would be an opportunity to mark the passage of 100 years with the promotion of enlargement in the Western Balkans. How much room is there for this in a time of crisis?
E. VENIZELOS: We don’t celebrate the anniversary of the declaration of a war – we celebrate its end. Greek Presidencies have been associated with enlargement. During our previous Presidency, in 2003, we set the goal of the European perspective of the Western Balkans, and this is always one of our priorities, adopted by the EU.
On 21 January we have the opening of the negotiations on Serbia’s accession – the Intergovernmental Conference for the opening of the negotiations between the EU and Serbia. This is very important for Serbia and very, very important for Kosovo as a perspective, so we are – as always – faithful to this policy of enlargement and European integration of the whole of the Western Balkans.
Naturally, there are cases like that of FYROM, Skopje, which is problematic because the government of the country is not helping, with its stance, to meet the criteria that have to be met by every candidate country, in accordance with the Copenhagen Criteria: respect for international law, good neighbourly relations.
But there are countries that can move ahead much more quickly, like Montenegro. Albania’s position is also satisfactory, and we came out in favor of the immediate granting of candidate-country status to Albania, and we will be reconsidering this case in June, during the Greek Presidency.
There is also the institutional difficulty with Bosnia-Herzegovina, which will have to find its European perspective gradually, which, for purely domestic reasons, isn’t easy. So we have important developments.
As President of the Council, I will be visiting these countries to meet with the governments and look at how we can facilitate this perspective where there is will for facilitation from the other side. I think that these six months are an opportunity to talk about the perspective of the Western Balkans and do specific things that will give meaning to this European perspective.
JOURNALIST: The European elections will be held during the Presidency. Are you concerned at the rise of anti-European forces? In France, for example, we see Le Pen getting very high numbers.
E. VENIZELOS: There is Euroscepticism in all European countries. This is nothing new. There have always been Eurosceptic forces or countries that have reservations, and of course the environment of the crisis fuels Eurosceptic conduct, just as it fuels xenophobic, racist, extreme-right conduct.
In Greece we have the characteristic example of Golden Dawn – the most flagrantly pro-Nazi party in Europe.
The Hellenic Presidency really is shorter in parliamentary terms, because the European Parliament will break up ahead of the elections, so we have four parliamentary months to utilize. But on the other hand we will be the Presidency of the Council during the great debate on the future of Europe. This debate on its own, in the abstract, means nothing.
The member states, the governments, the European organs must respond practically, in practice, to the major problems we saw as the priorities of our Presidency. That is, if Europe responds to the issues of growth, of employment, of investments, of security, of protection of rights, then Euroscepticism will get the response it should get.
JOURNALIST: Briefly, what would you like to see happen? What are you concerned about? What do you see as being most critical in the coming months?
E. VENIZELOS: The Presidency of the Council of the EU is a European institutional mission. Our Presidency’s priorities are the priorities of Europe. But at the same time, we also have major national priorities. The first six months of 2014 are the six months of the Presidency, but of greater importance to the Greek citizen is the fact that these are also the six months of the turnaround towards a definitive exit from the Memorandum and the crisis.
Now is when we will see the significance of the achievement of the primary surplus.
Now is when we will see the significance of the sacrifices the Greek people have been making for so many years, to stabilize the country fiscally.
Now we will see what happened with the haircut of the public debt and what it means for everyone to confirm that the debt is sustainable, so that there can be relief, which we will feel in the real economy, in the market, in financing for enterprises, in the potential for investments and new jobs.
Now we will see that we can redress the injustices that were unavoidable in the effort to meet the major fiscal goals. We will be able to treat major categories of citizens in a more friendly manner: the disabled, the aged, the uninsured, including large categories of unemployed who cannot remain without health coverage. So the turn is beginning toward the exit and the redressing of injustices.
We have the right to be more optimistic, more secure. Because Greece is proud and has suffered many affronts in the past few years. And now we have an opportunity to reclaim our rightful position in Europe and in the international economy.
January 7, 2014