Athens, 11 March 2008

“Good morning ladies and gentlemen. It is Clean Monday today, and we discussed a number of interesting issues at the General Affairs Council.

First, we looked at preparation for the European Council of 13 and 14 March. Greece considers the draft conclusions – particularly as regards the new round of the Lisbon strategy – to be satisfactory. I will focus on two points that are welcomed by the Greek side. It is positive that the emphasis will be put on the implementation of reforms and not on determining new priorities, with changes in the content of the guidelines and recommendations for the member states. It is also positive that detailed references to climate change and energy were included.

Second – I won’t go into the individual issues that we discussed, such as the Zimbabwe and Iran issues, because there were no important decisions on these – what we discussed in detail was the Balkans, developments in Serbia and Kosovo. And I once again had the opportunity to brief my colleagues, who, as you know, are not all NATO members, on our country’s positions regarding the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

The general conclusion from the discussions that took place is that every effort should be made to send the right message to Serbia: that there is a European future for Serbia; that the countries of the EU are determined to support Serbia’s European perspective. We all know that right now we have a pre-election atmosphere there. The government resigned – at this time Serbia has a caretaker government and the election campaign is expected to focus on the main issue of the country’s European perspective; that is, how close Serbia will come to Europe.

With regard to the Kosovo issue, several concerns and worries have been noted on the part of the member states. We agree substantially on the presence of a European civil force in Kosovo. Greece wants a stronger UN presence in the sense that each move we make in the region of Kosovo must be in compliance with Resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council.

With regard to the Skopje issue, I briefed the General Affairs Council and also my Minister colleagues from the European People's Party, which is the reason why I came here yesterday evening. The EPP, as you know, will hold its Summit meeting here in Brussels on Thursday. I had the opportunity to go into detail regarding Greece’s positions, our views, and, most of all, to explain why this whole issue is of substance to the whole region’s stability. I hope that before the NATO Summit in Bucharest an agreement will have been made possible, which will allow Skopje to join NATO and follow a smooth course towards accession to the European Union, and I once again call upon the Skopje government to come to the negotiations that, as you know, are under way with the same positive attitude as Greece.”