Brussels, 18/12/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 18 December, Greece's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Dimitris Kourkoulas presented the four main priorities (growth, employment and cohesion, economic and monetary union, migration, maritime policy) of the Greek Presidency of the Council, which will begin on 1 January 2014, but will be largely concentrated into three and a half months (as the EP will start its election campaign period in mid April).
On the first theme, Kourkoulas said that the Presidency intended to contribute to the swift implementation of the decisions made at the European Council of June 2013, such as the measure giving SMEs better borrowing capacity, the Youth Guarantee and the mid-term review of the 2020 strategy. On the EMU, measures must be brought in to improve the main shortcomings in the European architecture (much has already been done on banking union, he observed, stressing that the debates continued on Tuesday with a view to an agreement at the Ecofin Council). He welcomed the agreement on the deposit guarantee (see other articles). The aim is to have a more consistent and comprehensive European migration policy, said Kourkoulas, commenting on the third theme. He hopes that the European Council of June 2014 will adopt a new EU strategy for immigration policy. The fourth theme is maritime policy. Greece would like to see a more “integrated” approach which takes account of all of the various aspects (security, transport, energy, tourism, etc). The other priority areas will include: - enlargement (negotiations with Montenegro have made progress, negotiations will start under the Greek Presidency with Serbia and Albania may be given candidate country status in June); - the Eastern partnership (the decisions made at the Vilnius summit regarding Georgia and Moldova need to be implemented). “The list is by no means exhaustive”, said Kourkoulas, who went on to stress the efforts made to keep the costs of the Presidency down (€50 million, but this does not all have to be spent). (LC/transl.fl)