“Greek-French cooperation can be a model for the whole of Europe,” said Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, addressing Emmanuel Macron, President of France.
From the podium of the Hellenic-French Business Forum, the Greek Prime Minister elaborated on the fan of joint actions at the economic level and emphasized new investments in the fields of technology, security, energy focusing on both renewable energy and nuclear energy.
Noting that “the cooperation between the two countries has been established and forged historically, and more recently in the European firmament,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis said: “This model of cooperation is the most advanced form of cooperation with any other member of the EU.”
He cited the Greece – France agreement of 2021, which he described as a “milestone” “and today we have upgraded our agreement,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis said. “Europe is called upon to answer the questions for the future”, the Greek Prime Minister noted, focusing on security, improving competitiveness and improving the acquis communautaire. He posed the following question: “How can we be at the forefront of technology and innovation?”
“Greek-French cooperation is based on co-production in areas such as defence, cyber defence e.g. the Centauros system, cybersecurity, cooperation through start-ups and cooperation in innovative technology systems,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis noted. At the same time, speaking more broadly, he acknowledged the need to improve the competitiveness of the European economy, “because now Europe is lagging behind the US and China“, he said. He noted, however, that “France has advanced in AI and working with our own ecosystems can bring us forward as a country“.
Focusing mainly on defence, Kyriakos Mitsotakis said: “We have put into practice the cooperation with France in the national defence industry by building eight (8) new ships, long before it was launched in the rest of Europe.”
In the context of the implementation of the mutual assistance clause, Kyriakos Mitsotakis praised the “extra solidarity” towards Cyprus. “In this way we have sent a message of support and security to Cyprus and we must send a similar message to the economy and invest in energy, technology, defence, shipping and the whole range of investment activities,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis said.
“EU funding should be directed to defence, competitiveness and the climate crisis,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis said. “We know that we need a less bureaucratic public sector, to better train human resources,” he added.
In any case, Kyriakos Mitsotakis focused on energy issues and said: “We must have a single European energy market.” He stressed that “already Greece is a champion in energy production from renewable energy sources“. “But as a complement to base energy, we welcome France’s effort toexpand nuclear energy,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis said.
