Dear Friends,
I am very, very happy and proud to be here with you – and I stress the ‘with you’. I know many of you, and I am particularly familiar with the great potential you have; the diplomats and all the Ministry personnel. I am aware of the difficulties and challenges you face daily; challenges greater perhaps than those being faced by any other sector, not just because of the current crisis, but also because of the special nature, if you will, of your public service.
I’m not new to the Ministry. I imagine that many of you know me from the various times I passed through here, and that you have asked yourselves each time who this Lambrinidis is: Ambassador ad personam, Secretary General for Greeks Abroad? What is this invasion from outsiders? I must admit that my years at the Foreign Ministry were my most creative, whatever my capacity.
As Ambassador ad personam, I had the opportunity to work closely with the diplomatic leadership of the Ministry on some extremely sensitive issues and to develop boundless admiration for the strength, courage, the national compass that characterizes this Ministry.
As Secretary General for Greeks Abroad, I had the opportunity to travel around the world, to our seven million brothers in 143 countries. This inconceivable wealth that we have, that we refer to often because we think it sounds good. But in practice it takes very hard and intelligent political work to approach them for support for our country – particularly today, in difficult times. And as you know, many of these people worship Greece. They keep Greece in their hearts, but they are obviously not Greek citizens – they are foreign citizens. How to approach them is an extremely sensitive and critical issue for us.
Dear friends, I am taking up my duties in a difficult state of affairs. We have to surpass ourselves to help extricate the country from the crisis. In Luxembourg recently – at the Foreign Affairs Council – I had the opportunity for an initial meeting with any Foreign Ministers I didn’t already know from my position as Vice President of the European Parliament, and I must say that what pleased me was that they were all very warm and open, with a willingness to support our country. Have no doubt about that. Europe has supported and wants to give strong support to our homeland, but of course most of them wished me “good luck” rather than saying “congratulations”. So you can see – not that we didn’t already know this – how critical the situation we are handling is.
Now, in these circumstances, the Foreign Ministry’s role is obviously decisive. Its work has a multiplying effect on the overall effort. We have to work together to convince our partners of Greece’s credibility, to promote Greece’s interests and defend its rights. And I would like to take this opportunity to say I am not coming to a Ministry that does not have a compass and direction. I am coming to a Ministry that Dimitris Droutsas, a good friend, left.
And I am coming to a Ministry where I have two exceptional colleagues: Mariliza Xenogiannakopoulou, whom I had the honor and pleasure of working with so closely at the European Parliament at a time when we had to create a certain standing for Greece – from scratch, at least for us, for our team – and I think that the fact that we succeeded says a lot about the leadership Mariliza showed at that time. Dimitris Dollis and I go back decades. All of you who have worked with him are well aware of his exceptional abilities: in negotiations, leadership, etc. So, I feel surrounded by an excellent team – there is also Yannis Zepos, of course; I needn’t say much about the Secretary General, whom you all know and whom I have known for a long time.
Dear friends, particularly on the issue of the country’s international image – which many are trying systematically to stain – we have to respond. Let nothing go unanswered. For us, for our Ministry, if you will, this is the top priority. I think that if anything has happened in Europe recently, it is not so much a crisis of policies as it is of values; values upon which the policies are founded, if the values are clear. I think that two great values of the European Union – the value of the responsibility member states have to their partners, on the one hand, and the value of the solidarity partners owe one another, on the other – have been violated brazenly of late. But what the crisis has done in the main is not just scare peoples into their shells, but also begin to turn peoples against each other.
As I had the opportunity to say in Parliament yesterday, the Greeks, Portuguese, Irish and Spanish are not just Greeks, Portuguese, Irish and Spanish. To some they are also “PIGS”, and to others the Dutch and Germans are slowly becoming the ruthless exploiters of peoples. This sort of hostility is catastrophic for Europe. It is something that our collocutors in other European countries perceive to a great extent. They say, “I am frightened at the fact that such great nationalism, such great fear, is developing within my borders.” But it is naturally in our hands to deal with this. In the interest of our homeland and in the interest of the Europe that we belong to, we need to break this vicious circle of retraction into our shells, of hostility towards one another. We have the ability – our diplomatic service, the Ministry’s political leadership – to achieve this, but we need to put a lot of emphasis on this. I want our Embassies to come out on the international news media and make clear to global public opinion the vast potential of the Greek people and our determination to succeed. I want them to talk about the great changes we are making here in Greece and invite everyone to visit us; advertise our tourism. I want them to help our businesses in their efforts to internationalize.
For this reason, my dear friends, I intend to hold a conference, probably in late July, when all of our Ambassadors will be here. This conference will be aimed at bringing us up to date, letting us discuss things openly, providing guidelines on how to better confront the country’s communication issue, as well as our major national issues in the immediate future. We’re going to do this, and the details will be announced very soon.
My dear friends, I ask that you do your best. I assure you, based on my experience – and those of you who know me know that I am not just saying this – that I will support you. I am completely open to proposals. I don’t want a diplomatic service and Ministry personnel who feel they are simply carrying out instructions or orders. I want to discuss things. I want to hear opinions, even if you think they are opinions that are not widely acceptable or widely held. I want you to feel comfortable sharing the experience you have gained all these years.
This doesn’t me that I will agree, but I assure you that if this process takes place – and I am prompting it and want it, with the diplomatic service’s full respect for the political leadership and vice versa – there is no chance of my censuring anyone for proposing something I might not agree with. I’ll discuss it. But I want these discussions to take place in a coordinated manner and within a framework of absolute confidence. If they take place, you will have my full support.
The financial crisis made the situation even more difficult, I know. I have been briefed – and I monitored this earlier on – that your incomes have been hit and operational problems have been created. I have requested an in-depth briefing on these problems, they concern me. I can’t tell you whether and what I can do.
But I do assure you that this concerns me. And if at some point I have something to tell you, I will do so. But at the same time there are things that we can remedy without funding. We just need to be intelligent and determined. We can’t ignore the country’s economic situation.
What we need to ensure is that our sacrifices will be worthwhile, and this depends on us; it is in our hands. We have to work collectively. We have to work as a team so as to maximize our results. We need to support one another. We will obviously discuss these matters in the open dialogue I intend to have with all the Foreign Ministry personnel associations.
What I expect from you is your sincere, real assistance, because we are on the same team, my dear friends, and we have to support one another, because we can reverse the skewed image some people are trying to create of our country; because we can defend our national interests with complete success; because we are not a small or weak country; and because I am completely convinced that despite the economic difficulties, we will distinguish ourselves in this task we are undertaking together.
Thank you very much. I wish you strength and success in our work.
June 22, 2011