L. FABIUS: Ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure and honor for me to receive here in Paris the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Greece, Evangelos Venizelos. It is a pleasure to welcome the Foreign Minister of Greece, because he is a great friend of France. You all know how much our two countries share. We have historical relations. We have a shared outlook on the future of the European Union, which is our common future. And it is obviously an honor for me to receive, in the person of Evangelos, the Hellenic Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which just began.
As an indication of our close, timeless relations, there are the cultural events taking place within the framework of our “Greece-France-Alliance 2014” collaboration in Greece and France, on the occasion of the Hellenic Presidency of the Council. Finally, it is a pleasure to welcome a friend and a man of great experience who has an extremely rich knowledge of political and ministerial responsibilities.
Greece, which took over the Presidency at the beginning of this year, has a great responsibility in the management of European affairs during these six months. This is a very important semester, in the sense that, on the one hand, there are many issues that need to be resolved, and, on the other, because these six months are politically important because they lead up to the European elections. I already know that Greece will succeed in its fifth Presidency of the Council of the European Union. And I told my colleague and friend that Greece can rely on France’s support.
We had the opportunity, and I thank Evangelos, to talk about a number of European issues, on which we fully agreed: the priority of growth and jobs, the priority of completing work on the issues developing with regard to the banking union and the deepening of the Eurozone, the priority of dealing with issues like mobility for employment, the discussions on energy and the climate – these are very important.
Of course, we talked about some international issues.
The day after the meeting of the hard core of the “Friends of Syria.” I had the opportunity within the same day to talk about all of this with Sergey Lavrov, John Kerry, and Evangelos Venizelos. This exchange allowed for a truly strong and precise picture regarding Syria.
Naturally, we talked about Iran, the situation in Africa, and mainly in the Central African Republic, while France is proposing to the European Union that it take part in the operations being carried out there. We also talked about our bilateral relations, which are excellent and which can be further improved, mainly in the economic sector, where we want the French enterprises to have a strong presence.
We will come back to these issues with Evangelos Venizelos next week, in Brussels, and then in our meetings, which we will not stop having. Evangelos was kind enough to invite me to Greece, and I said, “Be careful, because if you invite me to Greece, I’ll come.” So I will be in Greece at some point that we will work out together, in the country that I came to love very much during my lyceum studies.
So it is a pleasure and an honor to welcome a European and Greek friend, and I reaffirm that France is at Greece’s side to help it exercise the Presidency of our European Union with success, which it will do any case.
E. VENIZELOS: Thank you, Laurent. A meeting with my French counterpart and friend, Laurent Fabius, is always an honor and a pleasure. Because Laurent Fabius is a central personality in French, European and international politics.
For me, this meeting is an exceptional opportunity to present the Hellenic Presidency’s priorities. As you know, our Presidency this semester is our fifth since Greece joined the European family.
We have the experience, we have the institutional memory, to fulfil the duties of the Presidency of the Council as European duties, because we understand the essential priorities of our European society. We talked with Laurent Fabius about the need for growth, jobs; the need to confront youth unemployment; the need to protect our Europe’s social dimension. Because our historical, ideological and political duty is to present to European societies a new narrative for the future of Europe, following the crisis.
We also discussed the protection of our borders and migration flows, because the Mediterranean member states really are under a great deal of pressure.
We also talked about the new economic governance regulations concerning the Eurozone and the EU-28. The completion of the banking union is one of our priorities – mainly the single resolution mechanism.
We also talked about our horizontal priority, which is for us a geographical priority: integrated EU maritime policy, which concerns energy, delimitation of maritime zones in the Mediterranean, in accordance with international law and in combination with the texts already drawn up by the European Commission.
We also discussed our bilateral relations, as well as France’s economic presence in the Greek economy – financial and real. We also talked about the international problems – mainly Syria, which is a priority ahead of the Geneva II conference.
As the Presidency of the Council, and in cooperation with High Representative Ashton, Greece is fully prepared to participate, because we are a member and part of the central current of the international community on the Syrian problem. We had the opportunity to underscore the humanitarian dimension and the need to protect the Mediterranean environment during the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal.
We talked extensively about Iran. We also talked about our neighbourhood, because there is a broad crisis in the region, and I was very pleased to hear my French counterpart’s stance. France is fully prepared to help the Greek Presidency, and we anticipate with great pleasure the official and, at the same time, friendly visit of my counterpart Laurent Fabius to Athens. Because this exchange of visits and meetings is always a good opportunity to promote our relations, as well as ideas and programmes that benefit both countries, so that we can honor our historical, cultural and institutional friendship.
January 14, 2014