The Minister of National Defence Panos Kammenos met with members of the Foundation for the Promotion of the Greek language and Hellenic culture “Maria Tsakos” which is based in Montevideo.

The delegation was accompanied by the Director of the Foundation Margarita Larriera and the professor and member of the Board of Directors Stratos Papadimitriou.

The meeting was also attended by the Chief of Hellenic National Defence General Staff Evangelos Apostolakis.

The Minister of National Defence in his address stated, among other things, the following:

“We feel honored and moved by your presence in the Ministry of National Defence. You are a real proof that the heart of the Greek people beats in every place of the world.

It is Greek people who participate in the promotion of the Greek culture and we welcome you as Greeks here.

Foundations like yours are a place of gathering not only for Greeks, but also for those who “chose to be Greeks”, as Ms. Margarita Larriera often says in her speeches, as well as on her radio programme in Uruguay.

Through your selfless cultural and educational activity, you serve as representatives of the Greek people abroad, as well as defenders of their rights, fundamental values, democracy, freedom, justice and equality.

In this remarkable manner, you managed to expand your activities and your prospects to all directions, to let people of Uruguay embrace you, translating the vision of the seaman from Kardamyli and founder of the foundation Captain Panagiotis Tsakos into action.

We are informed about your activities and are proud of you because our children, with their success abroad, continue to be an irrecusable proof of the history of the Greek people, of their traditions and ideals.

We, here, in Greece, are well aware that the Greek diaspora and its friends all over the world are the key factor of national power.

I, as Minister of National Defence, would like to assure you that Greece will continue to struggle for the common human values of our nations.

We have been going through a hard period, the financial crisis, yet Greece is a “pillar” of stability and democracy in the wider area of the Mediterranean Sea and contributes to the promotion of cooperation and prosperity of the peoples of our region.

You have had the chance to meet a typical Greek family, Tsakos family, Captain Panagiotis, and earlier Maria Tsakos who “left” too soon. Captain Panagiotis came on board the ship as a simple seaman in 1954. He worked in every post on the ship and after 26 years, in 1970, he became a captain, as he says, on the feast of St. Barbara. With his hard work he managed to make his dream come true, and Tsakos family has more than 70 ships all over the world nowadays.

But the power and success cannot be measured in “ship funnels”, as ship-owners say, but in how much seamen are loved. And Maria Tsakos was an example of this love. It is the same love that I saw in the eyes of the employees in Uruguay’s shipyards, along with the command and the property which is rare but exemplary for everyone.

I had the chance to serve as Deputy Minister of Merchant Marine and I will never forget that Maria Tsakos was always standing by the seamen, from the bridge to the engine to the deck, and this was the strength of the Greek naval tradition.

I know that you have been “bombed” with sayings of ancient Greeks. So allow me to use a quote of George Bernard Shaw who said that “if in the library of your house you do not have the works of the ancient Greek writers, then you live in a house with no light”. I am sure that in your houses there is too much light.

I would like, from the depths of my heart, to thank you for this on behalf of every Greek. I would like to wish you and your families, happiness, prosperity and the best of success to your efforts.

Welcome.”