Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Venizelos’ welcome speech at the event on the EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region (EUSAIR)

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Venizelos’ welcome speech at the event on the EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region (EUSAIR)E. VENIZELOS: Ministers, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, the Prime Minister welcomed you on behalf of the Greek government. I add my own warm words of welcome, particularly to our foreign visitors, the Commissioners – the Commissioner, because Maria is here at home – my colleague Ministers and Deputy foreign Ministers who were at the morning meeting. But I welcome you not just on behalf of the Greek government, but also on behalf of the Hellenic Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

The Hellenic Presidency, in close cooperation with the Albanian chairmanship of the Adriatic and Ionian Initiative (AII), organized this morning’s 16th Ministerial Meeting of the AAI, and we concluded, with the enthusiastic assistance of the two Commissioners who are with us, on a Declaration, the “Athens Declaration”, that sets the focus of this initiative for the period starting now, which is qualitatively very different from what has happened up until now. Because our goal and priority is now to make this region into a EU macroregion.

This inaugural meeting of the Conference on the European Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region is an opportunity for all of us to send a strong message of support for and solidarity with the citizens of Kefalonia in their current ordeal following the earthquakes.

It is also a wonderful opportunity, today, after everything Mrs. Damanaki said about environmental security in the Mediterranean, to note that we attach a great deal of importance to the timely and lege artis completion of the major operation for the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal.

We fully respect the relevant resolutions of the UN. We fully respect the initiatives, the responsibility, and the know-how of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). But, of course, as important as it is to us that Syria’s chemical arsenal be removed – because this is the first and major threat to the Mediterranean – it is equally important that the operation be carried out with absolute safeguarding – literally absolute, with no exception or exclusion – of the environmental security of the Mediterranean. The guarantee of absolute protection of the Mediterranean maritime environment is a condicio sine qua non for the completion of this process, and I am pleased because our coordinated and timely diplomatic initiatives throughout the previous days have now provided us with many institutional and scientific guarantees that the Mediterranean maritime environment really is at no risk.

We are working closely with the UN, with the OPCW, with the governments involved in the operation. We are working with other Mediterranean states. We have asked for the help of the European Commission and of Baroness Ashton, the High Representative of the European Union.

But the main thing, perhaps the most important thing, is that we have very close cooperation with those who are the guardians of the greatest environmental sensitivity: the respected and always active international NGOs, with whom we are in contact, and who are monitoring the issue, in close cooperation with the OPCW, so that we can be absolutely certain that the Mediterranean environment, our sea, will not be affected in any way.

Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, the Hellenic Presidency’s horizontal priority – which we have agreed will also be a priority of the next Presidency, the Italian Presidency, with whom we are putting together a Mediterranean year for the Presidency of the Council of the European Union – is Integrated Maritime Policy. And politically, the departure point for this notion lies in the Cypriot Presidency initiative that culminated in the Limassol Declaration.

For us, Integrated Maritime Policy is in reality our obligation to realize and to point up mainly the Mediterranean dimension of the European union. Thus, it is no coincidence that, a few weeks ago, in late December, seven Mediterranean EU countries reconstituted the Med Group, so that the Mediterranean parameter should have a clear presence in the proceedings of the Council of the European Union.

So I am glad that these political initiatives are now taking on their development dimension as well. You know that in the southeastern European space, as well as in the Mediterranean space, there are various fields of action, like, for example, security and defence policy, or regional development policy, many inter-state platform initiatives, configurations that are participated in by EU member states, by states that are candidates for accession to the EU, and by countries pursuing accession-candidate status.

This initiative, the Adriatic and Ionian Initiative, has an advantage that is not shared by the other initiatives. It has a very specific and practical development dimension that addresses not only the states, the governments, the public sectors. It also addresses civil society, including the market. The private sector is being called upon to become a real partner in this initiative.

Our initiative is open. It is a political initiative, though it is not some new international or regional organization. But it is of very great importance, now as we are making the big decisions about the future of this initiative, about the Adriatic-Ionian macroregion – in all sectors, from energy to culture, and from the implementation of the International Law of the Sea to fisheries – that we now lay proper foundations for this initiative and render it cohesive.

This morning, at the Ministerial Meeting, Mr. Hahn made a very important observation: It is not important for there to be assured funding beforehand; what is important is to shape political initiatives, for there to be resolve, for there to be a good idea around which we come together.

When we have these conditions, through the various mechanisms, through the various European or other mechanisms, we can find sources of funding with the help of the Structural Funds, with the help of the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and with the participation of the private sector. So we are starting with very good omens.

And of course – and I’ll close with this – what Maria Damanaki mentioned earlier is of vast political importance. Maritime spatial planning, like spatial planning in general, determining the uses of land and sea, is the first condition for a secure investment; it is the first criterion and the first incentive for any public or private initiative.

This is certainly linked with security of justice. And security of justice in the Mediterranean space, in the EU maritime space, means something self-evident within European legal and political culture: that we all accept the implementation of the International Law of the Sea, conventional and customary.

This means the declaration and delimitation of maritime zones, such as the continental shelf and the exclusive economic zone, which coincide throughout the Mediterranean space. Greece has one of the most important and oldest conventional bilateral Agreements on the delimitation of the continental shelf in the Adriatic and Ionian region, which is the Greek-Italian agreement of 1977.

We have already begun technical consultations with Italy to amend this agreement on the delimitation of the continental shelf into an agreement on the exclusive economic zone, as well. And our meetings with Albania for the updating and eventual ratification of the Greek-Albanian bilateral agreement on the delimitation of all the maritime zones is also of very great importance.

We will have the opportunity today to discuss this issue with Mr. Bushati, sending a very specific and optimistic message, not just on the political and inter-state level, but also on the investment, economic and development level.

With these thoughts, I welcome you and thank you for being here.

February 7, 2014