Athens, 23 November 2022

National Defence and Foreign Affairs Committee holds online meeting with relevant committee of Croatian Parliament

The National Defence and Foreign Affairs committee of the Hellenic Parliament held today an online meeting with the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Parliament of Croatia. The recent developments in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean were the central theme of the meeting. This meeting was held in the framework of online meetings organised so that the members of the Hellenic Parliament Committee can brief and exchange views with their counterparts from other EU parliaments. 

While briefing the Croatian MPs on developments in the region, the Greek MPs condemned Turkish revisionism and highlighted the issue of Turkish transgression and the need for an active expression of solidarity on the part of the member states and the EU as a whole. They noted that EU countries supply Turkey with weapon systems, which the latter uses to threaten two full EU member states, Greece and Cyprus. They further emphasised the need for Turkey to respect International Law, while they reminded their Croatian colleagues that only Turkey has not implemented the sanctions against Russia. The Greek side pointed out the systematic effort by the neighbouring country to instrumentalise the migration issue in order to obtain gains from the EU and the impact this stance has on member states. 

The Chairman of the National Defence and Foreign Affairs Committee Konstantinos Gioulekas referred to the common direction of the two countries, regarding the condemnation of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, contrasting it with the systematic revisionist rhetoric, as well as the ongoing questioning of International Conventions by Turkey. Referring to the refugee issue, he maintained that it is not possible for the host countries to carry the entire burden of managing the problem and asked for the proportional distribution of the volume of refugees among EU member states. 

The Croatian MPs, for their part, recognised the problems that arise from Turkey's stance and noted that the management of the migration issue is a major one for the EU. They thanked Greece for its support to Croatia on the issue of the latter's accession to the Eurozone, the Schengen Area and the OCDE. Lastly, they pointed out that the EU MED 9 is an important forum for the coordination and shaping of common positions within the EU, on the important challenges that the Union faces, with an emphasis on the region of the Mediterranean. 

Back