Foreign Policy Fronts and Challenges for Greece - The Best from Greece

Government vice-president Theodoros Pangalos  referred to what he called the "particularities" of Greek foreign policy, distinguishing between "fronts" and "challenges" in the diplomatic field.

Pangalos addressed a conference in Athens by the International Relations Institute on the Challenges of Greek Foreign Policy, hosted at the foreign ministry's auditorium.

He referred to the three diplomatic "fronts", as he said, that the country faces, namely, the serious and long-standing Cyprus problem -- "which, of course, requires the decisions of the Cypriot people to be led to a solution", as he stressed -- the issue of national sovereignty and the lesser but still unresolved issue involving the fYRoM "name dispute".

"We are pre-occupying people in Europe with these (problems). Really, how many (problems) do the remaining 26 plague us with?" he asked, adding that Greek foreign policy is unique for the above reasons.

Pangalos underlined the economic performances of a country exercising diplomacy and said that "you cannot be present and influence developments unless you have economic self-sufficiency ... No matter how wise a diplomacy you exercise, you cannot overcome the fact that you depend on others."

He further stressed that "we are a country in debt, one that lives on borrowed money. Enough with this fable of 'neo-populist' innovation. The problem of economic self-sufficiency is huge ... We can conduct serious diplomacy, but we must acquire economic self-sufficiency."

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