The Minister of National Defence Panos Kammenos accompanied by the Chief of HNDGS Admiral Evangelos Apostolakis, together with his Bulgarian counterpart Krasimir Karakachanov, attended the common exercise of the special operation forces of Greece and Bulgaria in which the 7th Amphibious Raider Battalion of Greece and the 2nd Battalion of the Bulgarian Special Forces participated; the exercise was conducted in Southern Bulgaria.

The Minister of National Defence stated the following:

“I would like to thank, in particular, the Defence Minister of Bulgaria, the Chief of the Special Forces, the Chief of Bulgaria’s Defence General Staff and the Chief of the Hellenic National Defence General Staff for planning this exercise.
    
I would like to congratulate the Officers, NCOs and privates, as well as our pilots and the crew of the aircraft and helicopters for conducting this excellent exercise.

I would also like to thank the local authorities, the media, the mayors and the people who attended this exercise.

As Mr. Minister said, we have met each other three times within a short while. So we should send a message that we will meet each other many more times.

With Bulgaria and Greece, and NATO member states in the Balkans, to the north, and with Cyprus, Israel and the Arab countries which are against terrorism, to the south, we will create a strong axis of stability, an axis of security.

We are proud of the Armed Forces and the political message that we send together is that Europe is safe. Central Europe, however, should realize that the countries of South-eastern Europe need support and growth because they are the shield that protects the entire Europe.

The last message is addressed to some people who want to destabilize the Balkans. They should know that Bulgaria and Greece will be their obstacles. We are ready to cooperate for the prosperity of our people, the security of Europe and the development of areas, such as this mountainous area we live in, poor areas that need the support of the big countries of Europe”.

JOURNALIST:  D. Trump recently said that Greece has a great success. How is it possible to keep such a high defence budget?

P.KAMMENOS: If we had as good neighbours as Bulgaria has, we would not need to maintain such a high defence budget. Not all our neighbouring countries love us. We are, therefore, obliged to keep such a high budget, particularly, in a wider destabilized area despite the financial crisis.

 At this moment, however, as President Trump said, what we ask for from the United States of America and NATO is to support our countries, so that we can develop our Armed Forces and modernize them. The Ministry of Defence of Bulgaria and the Bulgarian Armed Forces make a great effort and we will work together with the Minister in order to consider the synergies which we can have in defence industry, as well.