“We are witnessing an escalation of aggressive rhetoric and an increase in challenges on the ground,” said Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias during the 26th Economist round table discussion held in Lagonisi entitled “Antitheses, transformations, achievements in a changing world” (“Contradictions, Transformations, Achievements in a Changing World”).
As he pointed out, “until recently a very large part of the international community considered this questioning of rules and legitimacy in our region as a regional, perhaps sometimes indifferent problem”, but now “the entire international community is experiencing the revival of revisionism and as a theory, but even worse as a practice, either with a modern mantle, or with a neo-Ottoman mantle”.
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a turning point for European security. What we took for granted has been overturned,” he pointed out. “Basic principles of European, global development, respect for territorial integrity, national sovereignty, the fundamental rules of international law. All of these have ceased to be given in Europe.”
The Minister of Foreign Affairs pointed out that the questioning of these norms of the international community was a “painful sudden awakening” for many Western countries, but “this awakening is not new for Cyprus and Greece”.
“We have learned to live for many years at least since 1974 with the questioning of these rules. We and the Republic of Cyprus are the only country on the planet that lives under a constant expressed threat of war,” he stressed.
Mr. Dendias pointed out that the means used by countries transitioning to revisionism have many elements in common: the threat of use of force, the use of force itself, the occupation of foreign territories, hybrid attacks, the emphasis on propaganda, and more recently the new tool, the instrumentalization of the immigrant, of man’s desire for a better life.
“We believe that the answer can be summed up in three key words for Europe: deepening of European integration,” he noted.
Referring to the European project, he noted that it is very new, it is still in its initial stages and needs to be developed through deepening and widening.
“The European Union is a union of values ​​and principles and the most successful example of close cooperation between states in the history of mankind,” he noted. “The principles embraced by our country also constitute the gospel of our foreign policy. Respect for international law in the international law of the sea, which is part of our European acquis”.
“The European Union, in order to respond to this unstable environment, has one answer: to become much more stable itself and then to radiate this stability, beyond its limits, that is to project its soft power on the international stage,” he pointed out.
He emphasized that the great challenge in this great effort is to remain united, to overcome the challenges of energy, inflation, questioning, to take together the decisions needed to protect its own external borders as well and to continue to sanctions those who violate international law.
“In other words, to underline with her practice this structural diversity of hers against the outdated revisionisms of other forces and to convince herself of the need to support her members when they are threatened”, he noted. “That will probably be the only beneficial outcome of this massive anachronism that is the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
He pointed out that Greece makes every effort in this direction by building bridges with the countries of the wider region in the Middle East, the Gulf, but also beyond, China, India, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, while it is based on our excellent relationship with the US.
Mr. Dendias even welcomed the new US ambassador who was on the same panel and underlined how important it is that the US entrusted the representation of its interests in Greece to a Greek-American.
“Mr. Ambassador, may your presence here be the beginning of a lasting choice, so that the United States of America will always be represented in Greece by a Greek-American,” he noted.
The foreign minister also referred to the need to increase the military capacity of the EU, “which will be complementary to NATO and not against NATO”, while he stressed that we need the presence of the USA, especially in the South-East Mediterranean as a stabilizing factor.
Source: RES-MPE
Source: Capital
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