Thank you. Thank you Prime Minister for your kind words. It is always a pleasure to be back in Israel. Remember our last meeting was also during the first wave of the corona crisis. Lots have changed since. Some things have remained the same. But I would also like to take the opportunity to congratulate you on the speed with which you have vaccinated and you are vaccinating your population, which will allow us, once a significant percentage of the population is vaccinated and once you lift your own travel restrictions, to be able to offer Israeli tourists the opportunity to spend their holidays in Greece without any additional restrictions. I’m very happy that our Ministers of Tourism will sign a cooperation agreement. We’ve been working on for a long time in the field of tourism.
I’ve been a big proponent of the idea of vaccination certificates within the European Union. We need to facilitate travelers, once they provide easy proof of vaccination. And this is what we intend to do with Israel as it is a country, which is a further down the path in terms of vaccinating the majority of its population.
So I’m very glad that our ministries are working in that direction. And I do hope to be able to welcome Israeli tourists as soon as possible to Greece.
You’ve touched upon the other aspects of our strategic relationship, which is becoming stronger, I would say by the month, by the day. This is a partnership we have both invested a lot in.
As you said, two ancient civilizations, two democracies in the Eastern Mediterranean. We have a common interest in the broader stability in the region. And I think a common perspective in terms of what needs to happen to make sure that the Eastern Mediterranean remains peaceful and safe for all countries of the region.
You know that our strategic partnership in the defense sector is also deepening.
We are happy to have an Israeli company take over and offer flight training services to Greece for the next 20 years. It’s a big program. It will be based in Kalamata. And I think it is probably the most clear example of the partnerships we can build in the defence space. And of course there’s room for significant, further investment by Israeli companies in Greece.
I am absolutely confident that Greece is going to recover robustly, after the pandemic. I know there’s a lot of interest by Israeli companies to invest in real estate. It is already happening in Greece in the tourism sector, but also in the high tech sector, where Greece is making important steps in the right direction. We have excellent engineers and lots of international companies are beginning to realize that it is worthwhile setting up a presence in Greece. And I’m sure the opportunity will also be seized by Israeli companies.
So there’s so much more we can do. And of course, I’m very happy to have discussed the issue of this new drug, which caught, I think our attention in the international press. Assuming we can overcome the regulatory hurdles, which I think can be done very very quickly, Greece would be happy to participate in the clinical trials. Let’s hope it works. We will all be very, very relieved if we can actually find a drug that cures the disease itself.
So thank you very much for the warm welcome and looking forward to your next visit to Greece.
Dimitris Gkatsios (ERT): Good evening. A question, Prime Minister Mitsotakis and Prime Minister Netanyahu. I would like to ask you about the expectations for both countries regarding the utilization of the possibilities offered by the digital vaccination certificate, in view of the beginning of the tourism season. Thank you very much.
I think we have already commented on this. I have been advocating for a digital vaccination certificate within the European Union for intra EU travel. But at the same time, we want to make sure that we accept in an easy manner digital vaccination certificates from third countries. And this is exactly the project we are working on with Israel. And I do anticipate Israel being the first country to be able to offer such a certificate for travel to Greece, simply because as I told you, you have managed to vaccinate a larger proportion of the population and you are moving at a faster pace. I expect what we will be doing with Israel to be essentially a trial one for what we can do with other countries. I do expect a lot of demand for travel once we suppress Covid. People are tired, people want to travel. They didn’t travel a lot last year. Greece is a country that by all epidemiological data remains much safer than most European countries. I do expect that by April we will have suppressed the epidemic much further. We are also moving fast with our vaccinations plan and we know that this virus has a clear seasonal element to it.
So I am very much looking forward -as I told you- to make the vaccination certificates, green lanes, no matter what you call them. Essentially it is an easy proof of vaccination that will allow you to enter the country without any additional restrictions.
Israeli journalist: Mr Mitsotakis. I have a question. Did you ask Mr Netanyahu guarantees that a reconciliation between Israel and Turkey will not be at the expense of Greece?
Well first of all I don’t know if any reconciliation between Israel and Turkey is on the cards. What I can tell you is that we don’t define our relations in the context of third parties. We have a very strong bilateral relationship. As you know we have had our issues with Turkey but things seem to be improving and to the extent that we see no further acts of aggression of the Turkish side we will continue with the exploratory talks. But this is too important a relationship on its own merits to be defined through other actors.
