In his own address at the Hellenic-French Economic Forum, French President Emmanuel Macron said that what unites the two countries is demonstrated by this forum.
He stressed that in recent years there has been bilateral cooperation on many levels, and the agreements reached so far encourage us to go further. He referred to Greece’s successes in economic and political terms since the crisis it has gone through, and that France has always been on our country’s side in the face of an asymmetric shock it faced and had to make very strong and courageous reforms. He made special reference to the growth that exceeded the EU average and the significant drop in unemployment.
“Really a model, a model of economic progress is your country,” he said, addressing investors, adding that the recent election of Kyriakos Pierrakakis as Eurogroup President comes to confirm, to seal this confidence in Greece.
He underlined the strengthening of bilateral relations and partnerships, saying that more than 200 French companies with more than 17.000 employees are in Greece, investments for ten years have been constantly increasing, exceeding 2 billion euros, while cooperation in the fields of defence, artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, renewable energy with wind farms is also important… All these investments, all these successes mark this upward trend and confirm it, but we are not at the level of investment that we should have given the security and economic history that we have ‘written’ in recent years.”
“I am convinced that we can do a lot and certainly a lot more than we have achieved so far,” he said.
Talking about the geopolitical challenges and geo-economic confrontations that are creating tensions, President Macron said our two countries are governed by geopragmatism. That is, we defend a vision that is not confrontational either with China or with the United States. It simply wants to strengthen the independence of Europe, the independence of our countries, in defence, in new technologies, in economics, and at the same time we want to build partnerships and new forms of partnership with other countries. He stressed that Greece and France in this new diagonal axis called IMEC have a very central position and act as its driving forces.
The French President stressed the importance of making Europe more competitive because it cannot stand a chance when it is more expensive and slower than others.
He also stressed the importance of protecting European values, diversifying through partnerships and cooperation, and boosting investment. “Essentially the battle is being fought now. The key word is acceleration,” he added and said that both countries would defend a very ambitious European budget for public and private investment. He also urged us as Europeans to re-read Cartesian thinking. “So let’s believe in ourselves, let’s continue our efforts forward and long live the friendship between Greece and France.”
