The Minister of National Defence Mr Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos participates in the proceedings of the 15th Annual Baltic Conference on Defence. The Conference is being held in Tallinn – Estonia and the Greek Minister participates as a speaker of the basic module titled: “NATO’s New Strategic Concept”.
In the context of the Conference, Mr Panagiotopoulos proceeded to a joint statement on the migrant crisis, along with his Estonian counterpart Mr Kalle Laanet, the Vice Minister of National Defence of Lithuania Mr Margiris Abukevicius and the Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom Mr James Heappey.
You can read the statement of the Minister of National Defence below:
“We stand side by side on the European borders, as European partners, united with Poland against the security challenges and the new particular security challenge it currently faces.
I would like to mention that we faced a similar situation in the past on our own northeast borders. That event has many similarities with the current situation and the bottom line is that the migration and refugee flows are being instrumentalised by state actors which aim for geopolitical or financial benefits.
Therefore, we all must take strong action against those practices by state actors”.