Christiane Amanpour: The Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, is here with me now. Welcome to the programme. I just want you to react. You were in the room, obviously, for President Biden’s speech, his last speech as President. He did put today’s issues in terms of historical context. Do you feel as optimistic as he seemed to be about the ability to solve these current crises?
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: First of all, I understand that it was a very emotional speech for President Biden coming to the end of a very, very long career. I think it was a powerful speech in the sense that he touched upon various very, very important issues, including the opportunities and challenges of artificial intelligence. I think it is important because we need US leadership on all those issues. I was happy with the overall context of the speech, but now, of course, we need to get down to the nitty-gritty details of addressing all these issues.
Christiane Amanpour: Okay, so one of the nitty-gritty details for you, particularly, is the new war in the Middle East, and that’s causing another huge stream of refugees. I think they’re moving towards the Mediterranean, moving towards Turkey. You’ve just had conversations with President Erdoğan about the challenge you face right now because of all this. Can you tell us what you guys discussed and how you’re going to fix it?
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: First of all, it was our sixth meeting over the past year. In itself, I think this constitutes significant progress in the quality of the Greek-Turkish relationship because as you remember, we’ve had our frictions over the past years. I think it is very important to have open channels of communication to wherever we disagree, and we do disagree on issues such as the delimitation of maritime zones, to do so by, first of all, agreeing that the issue can only be resolved with reference to international law, but also to work together on issues such as migration. We have made progress in terms of addressing this problem.
What we want, Christiane, is we want the boats to be stopped before they enter the water. And in order to do that, we need, of course, the cooperation of the Turkish authorities. I’d say we’ve made progress over the past year in establishing better channels of communication because migration is a huge issue, and we don’t want to leave it up to the smugglers to decide who enters the European Union or to put innocent lives at risk. So working with Turkey on this topic is very important.
Christiane Amanpour: So some point that there’s, potentially in one of the things you’ve called for, is for the EU to allow more of the children, the wounded civilians from Gaza, to be able to come to the EU. At the same time, let me just get this right, you and Turkey have been building a barrier, like a cement and barbed wire fence, along your northern border. Is there a contradiction with how you see the issue of migration and refugees?
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: I think that, Christiane, we need both a big fence and a big door. Let me explain what I mean. It is important for the European Union to defend its external borders. At the same time, it is important to establish legal pathways to migration and to do so in an organised and disciplined manner, both for humanitarian reasons, but also for economic reasons.
Greece, for example, was the one country that accepted hundreds of women from Afghanistan when the country essentially was on the verge of collapse after the US abandoned the country, abrupty. We have both humanitarian sensitivities, but at the same time, we want to send a message to countries such as Egypt, for example, that we can welcome workers to Greece. They can come and stay. They can come legally, safely, and they don’t need to embark on a dangerous trip across the Aegean Sea in order to get to Greece.
I think this has to be the foundation of a modern migration policy by the European Union. The solution is not to bypass the Schengen rules unilaterally. We have a Pact for Asylum and Migration. It makes no one completely happy, but that is the nature of European compromise, and we need to implement it.
Christiane Amanpour: Let me just ask you, because this is an endless issue for you that you’re constantly being asked about because it’s tragic. Yesterday, another four migrants died in a shipwreck off your Coast, off the island of Samos. Five were rescued, another 25 have been located on shore. Your Coastguards periodically have been accused of allegedly forcing people out of your waters and making people go back out to sea and turn them away from Greece. As you know, last year, the New York Times posted a big, important investigation, with footage of boats being set adrift by the Coast Guard. This seems to be alarmingly too often.
I wonder how you can deal with this as you try to both control and be humanitarian.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: I take your point, and I acknowledge that it is a difficult balance to strike. First of all, let me point out that there was no involvement of the Greek Coast Guard in yesterday’s incident. It is a clear example of what happens when you have a dinghy trying to come across in poor weather conditions. The Coast Guard only showed up to save people, which is the rule, Christiane. Whenever we have incidents where we feel we need to investigate, we will do so. At the same time, we do retain for ourselves the right to intercept boats on the sea border. I need to stress these are not the open waters. The borders, as you know, are relatively close. Then work with the Turkish Coast Guard in order to return these people to Turkey with safety.
But the most important thing is no boats at sea, and only the Turkish authorities can help us for this to happen, because it is tragic for human lives to be lost on a journey which is dangerous and where we have essentially outsourced to the smugglers the right to determine who will make this journey.
Christiane Amanpour: This is obviously an issue that many Europeans and, of course, the US are dealing with. What is the outcome of some of these investigations? Have they been concluded?
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Not yet. I have no indication that the Greek… especially when it comes to the Pylos tragedy, which I need to remind you happened in international waters, that there was any involvement by the Greek Coast Guard that actually caused this accident. But we’re always open and we need to investigate properly. We have also independent authorities in Greece that are actually doing this investigation.
Christiane Amanpour: Let me just get back to the Israel-Palestinian war, Israel-Hamas war. And your Foreign Minister said yesterday, “It seems that there’s no effective pressure on Israel. We’re friends of Israel, and we’re strategic partners of Israel, and we’re trying to be as open and as sincere with them”. Okay, how does that play out? I mean, there’s no influence, right? Who do you think can actually pressure Israel? If you think they should be.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: First of all, I think they should. And we made it very, very clear to our Israeli friends that there were opportunities to get to a ceasefire. That is at least how we feel, and those opportunities were not taken. And as long as you don’t have a ceasefire in Gaza, the hostages will not be released. You will have a necessary loss of life, compounding already on the humanitarian catastrophe that has taken place. And you will always give Hezbollah a reason to continue firing rockets into Israel. So it seems to me that it is also in Israel’s interest to get to a ceasefire as quickly as possible.
Look, we don’t want to over-exaggerate our power. I mean, many other countries, including the US, have said the same thing to Israel. But I do point out that we are a good friend of Israel, and I think friends need to tell hard truths to friends. This is essentially what we have done, and we’ve also aligned our votes at the Security Council accordingly.
Christiane Amanpour: You just said “including the USA”, which has a huge influence on or should, because it’s such a strong ally of Israel. Does it alarm you that even the United States has not been able to have effective influence, in terms of actually achieving the ceasefire. You saw President Biden get pretty emphatic about “now it’s time for the parties to end this”.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Well, maybe it is, as President Biden is coming to the end of his term, maybe this is the opportunity to really do what he can to stop this, because the consequences are dramatic and there are also economic consequences. Look what’s happening in the Red Sea. Greece is the largest maritime nation in the world. We’re concerned about security and freedom of navigation. We had a Greek tanker that was attacked by the Houthi.
So, there are many consequences of this crisis, including the impact on the cost of living, which is our number one priority for all Western countries. This is not just a question for the Israelis or the Palestinians or the Lebanese to resolve. This is a regional conflict with global implications.
Christiane Amanpour: What about a global crisis, and that is climate change, not getting a huge amount of public attention here. There are obviously sideline conferences. The President, again, President Biden said, one of the things he’s so proud about is that his country did the biggest investment in climate infrastructure and green infrastructure. What are the challenges you’re facing right now? Because there’s the fires and there’s the floods and there’s so much going on.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: The Mediterranean, as you know, Christiane, is a hotbed for the climate crisis. It is happening. And by the way, it’s not just the Mediterranean, you saw huge floods in Central Europe. So the climate crisis is already here.
What does this mean? First of all, we need to invest much more, not just in mitigation, which is what we are doing, but also in short-term adaptation. In Greece, for example, we’re using sophisticated technologies, drones, artificial intelligence to identify wildfires as quickly as possible. And we actually did well this year. With the exception of one big fire, the forests that we lost were significantly less than in other years, in the hottest summer that we have ever experienced.
So, we need to be ahead of the curve, but this needs to be a European initiative, not just a Greek initiative. And I’m afraid that when you look at the resources that we have available in Europe, we focus a lot on the Green Deal, but we focus very little on short-term adaptation. Because once these climate events hit, it is devastating, whether we’re talking about wildfires or the big floods. We need to do more as Europe to convince our citizens that on the path towards climate neutrality, we will stand by them in case we have a catastrophic climate event.
Christiane Amanpour: What do you think about the central European project, if you like, on this? Because obviously, after COVID, there was the big Green Deal, but there seems to be chipping away at the edges of that.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: I think there’s a general understanding, which was also reflected in the Draghi report, that the Green Deal is a very lofty goal, but it cannot take place at the expense of the competitiveness of the European industry or by significantly decreasing living standards for Europeans. If this means making certain readjustments, I wouldn’t call them “chipping away”, I would call them realistic readjustments to what we have agreed, so be it, I think we will be in the right direction.
Christiane Amanpour: Finally, and totally unrelated, but important to you and your people and the British people, the marbles, the Parthenon Marbles..
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: The Sculptures. The Parthenon Sculptures.
Christiane Amanpour: The Sculptures, there you go. Obviously, there was a lot of conversation between you and, at the time, George Osborne was the designated negotiator. What’s going on? Where are we with that?
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Well, first of all, let us agree that it is, I think, important for the global cultural heritage for these Sculptures to be viewed in Athens in unity with what is already there, because we’re talking about the reunification, not the return. It’s one monument, Christiane, and I’ve used the analogy, it’s as if you cut the Mona Lisa in half and you have half of it in the Louvre and half of it in the British Museum.
So, this is going to happen at some point, I’m sure about that. We’re having discussions in good faith with the museum. I think also the new British government may be more open, although it is not their decision, to a mutually agreed arrangement that will allow for the reunification of the Sculptures and the ability of all of us to actually view them in the shadow of the Parthenon where they always belong. I think we have a very credible case, and we will continue to push.
Christiane Amanpour: Are you optimistic?
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: I am optimistic.
Christiane Amanpour: And what kind of a time frame?
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Well, look, I’ve said it. It has taken us… We’ve waited for 200 years, but this is certainly something I sense an urgency in trying to address this issue, and it’s certainly very high up my personal agenda.
Christiane Amanpour: It is indeed. Prime Minister Mitsotakis, thank you so much. Thank you.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Thank you, Christiane. Thank you so much.
