The Minister of National Defence Mr. Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos, concluded his official visit to Austria, yesterday Thursday 23 September 2021, participating along with his counterpart Ms. Klaudia Tanner in a special briefing, regarding the borders crossing management in Eisenstadt.

The two Ministers proceeded with the border crossing of the federal state Burgenland and observed a demonstration of borders guard, by joint military and police forces.

Following the activity, Mr. Panagiotopoulos stated:

“Dear friend and colleague Ms. Klaudia Tanner,

Men and women of the Austrian Armed Forces and the Police,

Ladies and Gentlemen,,

We had an outstanding opportunity this evening to come here, in the peaceful borders of Austria and Hungary, to observe an excellent and very effective demonstration of the borders control capabilities of the Austrian Armed Forces, in cooperation with the Austrian Police. It was really outstanding.

I had the opportunity and honour to visit the Austrian Ministry of Defence and exchange views on issues concerning the security in our wider region, the future of Europe with regard to the particularly sudden and dramatic political developments and our bilateral defence cooperation; all these, with my dear colleague, the Minister Ms. Tanner. We also had the opportunity to sigh a Memorandum of Understanding for a better and more extensive cooperation between our countries, in the field of Defence.

As I had the opportunity to state earlier, Austria and Greece are two countries which have had a very friendly and close relationship, since we almost share the same views and values regarding security and defence issues and in general, regarding the stability in our region and elsewhere. These elements almost oblige us to find ways to extend our defence cooperation and this is exactly what we are going to do with all partners in Europe and elsewhere.

We more or less share the same views in the fields of Security and Defence in our environment. During our discussion we placed particular emphasis on the possible emergence of refugees and migratory flows from the East to the West. Most possibly, the recent developments in Afghanistan will lead to the intensification of these flows in the near future. We do not wish to have a vision of Europe surrounded by walls and fences, but at the same time, we must assure the sufficient protection of our national borders.

According to our experience a year ago, an experience during which we got great assistance from our Austrian friends, we managed to protect and assure our borders, which are also Europe’s borders, against what I prefer to call an “organized invasion”; having reached a very high level of cooperation between the Armed Forces and our Police, by developing an information flow, intensifying surveillance throughout our borders, assisted by technology, so that we can respond in the field at a tactical level.

Finally, we had the privilege to get immediate assistance from our European partners. One of the countries which did that was Austria and for this I would like to thank you once more. This is the way we would like to proceed in the future and this is what I evidenced today in this outstanding demonstration by the Armed Forces and the Austrian Police. Once more, many thanks for honoring me and giving me the opportunity to observe this specific demonstration and allow me once again to reiterate my initial invitation to you dear colleague to continue our talks in Athens.

Thank you”.