Athens , 14 September 2009

Greece may be in the midst of a run-up to elections, but – as you know – foreign policy never stops. Today’s Council is important because be discussed issues that will be addressed by the October European Council.

These are issues of particular importance to Greece, like illegal migration, where we want to see greater progress towards a real European approach to this huge challenge.

I would like at this point to make an aside and mention the newest incident: interference with a FRONTEX helicopter via radio by Turkish radar. This short-sighted treatment by Turkey of the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders is truly disappointing. And what is even worse is that according to the information we have, the pilot – at the time of the interference – had located and was monitoring a boat carrying illegal migrants and approaching the Greek island of Farmakonisi, while a Turkish patrol boat was sighted in the area, in Greek territorial waters. These facts make obvious the goal of the Turkish efforts to harass the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders. Once again, Turkey – instead of contributing to the confronting of this phenomenon – is breaking its commitments. Moreover, the recorded presence of the Turkish patrol boat raises serious questions. Beyond a briefing on the Community level, the Greek Embassy in Ankara will make a demarche to the Turkish Foreign Ministry.

Returning to the issues we discussed today, confronting the economic crisis is of vital importance for the future of Europe, with emphasis on the matters of employment and regulation of the financial system. The Informal European Council will take place the day after tomorrow, and there we will see an effort to shape a Community position ahead of the G-20 meeting in the U.S.

We also discussed institutional issues being addressed by the Union and the changes that the Lisbon Treaty will bring if all goes well with the ratification, as we hope will be the case.

Finally, we discussed the preparations for – and need for our countries to be coordinated at – the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. The Union has to go to this meeting with a single voice, and this assumes good preparation and support for the relevant efforts of the Swedish Presidency.

Later, at the dinner, we will go into external relations issues: the prospects taking shape following Iran’s reply to the proposals of the 6. We are at a turning point on this issue, and that is why we need to exercise great caution in our public statements.

What was not on the agenda, but is of great importance to Greece, is the preparation of the progress reports on candidate countries. These texts, which are being formulated now, will be made public in mid-October and will be the basis of the discussion at the December European Council. For many weeks now, we have been making contacts on all levels – within an intergovernmental framework and at the Commission – so that these texts set down the reality of the situation consistently and accurately.

On the margins of today’s Council, I met with the new Bulgarian Foreign Minister. It was a very useful meeting, at which we discussed matters of mutual interest.

The coming month is a critical one. We have already made a great effort, and we have reason to be satisfied. But we need to proceed with caution, particularly due to the pre-election period. All of the country’s political forces must show responsibility.