Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikos Dendias’ statements following his meeting with his Serbian counterpart, Nikola Selaković (Athens, 02.11.2021)

My dear Nikola, welcome to Athens. I am very glad to welcome you here just a few months -although I have to tell you it seems to me as if a long time has passed since then- after my visit to Belgrade.

To begin with, I would like to express publicly as well, on behalf of the Mitsotakis government, our heartfelt thanks to the Serbian government, to President Vučić, to the Serbian people for the assistance you provided us in extinguishing the wildfires during the summer.

That was one more opportunity to strengthen the ties between our societies, between our peoples. Also, I cannot fail to notice the significant increase in tourist arrivals in Greece from Serbia last summer.

Of course, I am stating the obvious. There are historical, there are religious ties between us; Bonds dating back centuries. Both the Greek and Serbian peoples rose up against Ottoman oppression and fought successfully for their freedom two centuries ago.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the modern Greek state, of our independence. And together with Serbia we have always been on the same side of History.

So, we stand today by the people of Serbia, Serbian society, in order for you to become an integral part of the European family because we believe that you belong there.

We believe that governments should heed to this popular sentiment of community shared by our peoples. Our financial relations, dear Nikola, are at a high level. Greek entrepreneurs have invested more than 2.5 billion euros in Serbia.

We are proud that Greek entrepreneurs have created at least 25,000 jobs. And our intention is to approach new opportunities so that there is a mutual benefit and of course to face any challenges that have arisen.

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Economic Diplomacy, as we said earlier, will travel to Belgrade in two weeks and I am glad that you will assist him in expanding the scope of our cooperation.

There is also immense potential in the fields of energy and transport. There are many possibilities for strengthening the interconnection between us at both bilateral and multilateral levels with the participation of other states in our region.

We discussed, and I am very happy about that, the military cooperation between us.

I will brief the Minister of Defence, Nikos Panagiotopoulos, on the outcome of our conversation and I hope that the two Ministries of Defence, the Armed Forces of Greece and Serbia will work very closely in the near future.

As I want to be honest with you, as we were during our private meeting, despite occasional steps forward, our cooperation in the field of defence lags behind our cooperation in other areas. We can do better in this area.

Also, let us not fool ourselves. There are countries in our region that do not necessarily share Serbia’s positive approach towards European foreign policy and defence.

During our long discussion, we had the opportunity to analyze thoroughly developments in the wider region. I reiterated Greece's firm commitment to the European path of the Western Balkans, of course with the well-known conditionality.

I stated to my friend, the Serbian Minister, the readiness of the Mitsotakis Government to offer technical assistance if the Serbian side wishes.

We discussed the issue of Kosovo; I express the satisfaction of the Greek Government over the lowering of tensions in northern Kosovo. We support the work of the Special Envoy for the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue.

We call on all parties to come in a constructive spirit to the next meeting, which, as Nikola told me, will be held in a few weeks.

I also underlined that we support the accession path of North Macedonia and Albania and will continue our efforts to convene the first intergovernmental Conference as soon as possible.

With regard to North Macedonia, I added of course what the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has stressed, that pacta sunt servanda, Agreements must be observed regardless of governments. We are also interested in the full, consistent and in good faith implementation of the Prespa Agreement.

I expressed to the Serbian Minister our deep concern about developments in Bosnia and Herzegovina and I must say that I gave him our views, which I feel he shares, that the stalemate and difficulties that Bosnia and Herzegovina faces threaten not only the fragile balance in the country itself but also the overall stability of our region.

I reiterated our country's firm opposition to centrifugal forces that would possibly have liked to redraw the map of our region.

But as I must also be honest here, I openly raised with him the issue of the influence of external players who, under the guise of development aid and supposedly historical, cultural and religious traditions, promote extreme ideologies and a destabilizing agenda in the Balkans.

Accession of the Western Balkans into the European family. In our view, this is the only way forward for them. And in this direction, Dear Nikola, Greece, the Hellenic Republic, will continue to provide its assistance, will continue to make efforts, and will continue to work.

Thank you so much for your visit today, I think it was extremely beneficial. Concluding, I would like to mention that we will expand our cooperation at the level of trilateral meetings as well. After a few weeks we will organize the trilateral Meeting between Serbia, Cyprus and Greece, but also quadrilateral schemes that you had the kindness to propose during our discussion, and of course I believe that you should be the one to announce it to the Greek audience, but I would like to say that we are particularly positive also about this direction.

Thank you so much for your presence here today.