D. KOURKOULAS: I had the pleasure of meeting with my friend the Deputy Minister, whom I have known and collaborated with for some time now, including during the very successful Cypriot EU Presidency. Our meeting was very useful because we are trying to prepare as best we can for the Greek Presidency in the first half of 2014, and Cyprus’s recent experience is very useful to us.
We also discussed and heard from the Deputy Minister the very interesting proceedings of the Cypriot Presidency’s handling of sensitive and important political issues. We decided that we will remain in very close contact throughout the preparations for the Greek Presidency.
A. MAVROYIANNIS: I would like to start by paraphrasing a historic statement made by the late Giorgios Papandreou: that Greece is one of the lungs of Cyprus and the Republic of Cyprus. I expressed my thanks and gratitude for all the assistance we received from Greece, in difficult times, toward the success of the Cypriot Presidency. The very least I and my associates could do in return was to share the experience we gained during the Cypriot Presidency, which was by all accounts very successful and somewhat different from the Presidencies of the past.
These are experiences following the Lisbon Treaty, so there are some new aspects to these experiences. We wanted to share these experiences with the very dear Dimitris Kourkoulas, the Deputy Foreign Minister – who is an old friend – and it is a great honor and pleasure to be visiting him today in Athens.
We will do everything we can to help everything go well with the Greek Presidency in the first half of 2014. I am absolutely certain that the Greek Presidency will go well. All that is needed is for the Presidency to adapt to the new conditions now prevailing; to both the economic conditions and the new way the Presidency functions, particularly the inter-institutional functions and the new role of the Presidency of the Council of the EU. And that may be where we can offer some useful experience to the Greek Presidency. And that was the main subject of our meeting today.
January 10, 2013