On Friday 9 July 2021, the Minister of National Defence Mr. Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos, by participating as speaker at the 25th round table discussion of the Economist on behalf of the Hellenic Government, entitled “From social distancing to social solidarity” conducted in Athens, addressed the following:
“Ladies and gentlemen,
First, I would like to express my thanks for this invitation, which gives me the opportunity to communicate my point of view regarding sensitive geopolitical issues. I am very happy, to see many people here, in this room. Although we have not completely overcome the coronavirus danger, I believe we are allowed to plan the future and of course adjust.
Regarding your comments, I would like to say that Greece has gone a long way since the 70s. A long time has passed since then. The political conflicts are always in the fore-ground, there is passion, but many things have changed. Greece is a NATO member nation; it “embraces” NATO and the military Alliance which is seeking a new role in the geopolitical field.
Greece honours its participation in NATO; it is a firm member of the Alliance and enjoys a positively developing strategic relation with the United States of America. The old “anti-American climate”, I would say, belongs to the past. The strategic relation between Greece and the U.S. is better than ever before and this can be proved by the Mutual Defence Cooperation Agreement between our countries, which is currently under amendment. I could say that the working groups will have completed the discussions on the agreement by the end of summer. So, ahead of us, we have its signing by the State Department and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which indicates our strong strategic bond.
Regarding the Eastern Mediterranean, Greece is a security provider and a pillar of stability and peace. The Eastern Mediterranean is an ever-changing region. Historically, whenever there are problems in the Eastern Mediterranean, they expand in the wider region, whilst there is calmness and peace, appropriate prosperity conditions are formed both in the wider region and beyond that. There is a big interest to secure peace and stability, so that a possibility arises for growth and prosperity in the region.
In this context, Greece is involved very actively in two fields: The first is intensive diplomacy and the second is the improvement of the total capabilities of the Armed Forces. These do not contravene each other, instead they are compatible. We are very active in the diplomacy field.
Of course, the diplomacy policy is mainly exercised by the Prime Minister Mr. Kyriakos Mitsotakis and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Nikos Dendias, but in the field of defence diplomacy there is also space for good and positive results. These results are evident in a series of agreements concluded in the defence cooperation field and provide for our participation in bilateral, trilateral and multilateral formations with countries with which we share in general the same views regarding the significance of security and stability in the region.
This corresponds to the trilateral cooperation we have with Cyprus and Israel, through the cooperation “3+1”, in which Cyprus, Israel and the U.S. participate, with the quadruple cooperation in which France, Italy and Cyprus participate, as well as the bilateral cooperation agreements, with Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
A common denominator in all these is that we share the same views regarding the security and stability environment in the region. A basic prerequisite with regard to this is to realise what the American President Mr. Biden has described, that the international order is based on rules, meaning the International Law, the International Treaties, international legality and the good neighbouring rules as well. When everyone respects these rules, there is no problem. But, if someone does not acknowledge these rules and does not comply with them, then problems arise. We must act all together as one to isolate anyone who does not accept and does not follow these rules. This is a simple condition, as I describe it.
Greece is a firm partner both to the Allies in NATO and the European Union and the regional allies and partners. We constitute a pillar of stability and we are working hard at diplomacy level in order to confirm this and to achieve security, stability and prosperity in the region.
At the same time, we are working hard in order to improve the deterrent power and capability of our Armed Forces. This is why we implement ambitious, well planned projects in terms of technology-finances and prioritized projects, in order to upgrade the current weapon systems and add them to the new, high technology and capability weapon systems, like aircraft and ships”.
