New Delhi: Greek Prime Minister Kyrios Mitsotakis during his state visit to India held wide ranging discussion with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The discussion included strengthen bilateral ties, doubling trade with India, finalising a mobility and migration pact to regulate legal migration, as well as cooperating on co-production and co-development of military hardware.
To impart “new energy” to the bilateral ties, Mitsotakis and Modi held extensive talks and discussed strengthening cooperation in various areas and aim to conclude a migration and mobility partnership agreement, providing employment opportunities. India and Greece agreed on co-production and co-development of defence items.
“The two sides have common concerns and priorities in the fight against terrorism and there was a discussion in detail on how to further strengthen cooperation in this area,” said Prime Minister Modi interacting with the press after the talks.
The growing India-Greece cooperation in defence and security reflects the “deep mutual trust”. It was agreed to link the defence industries of both the countries, he said.
“With the formation of a working group in this area, we will be able to increase mutual coordination on common challenges like defence, cyber security, counter-terrorism, maritime security,” he said, adding, “New opportunities for co-production and co-development are being created in defense manufacturing in India, which can be beneficial for both the countries.”
Prime Minister Modi said that India welcomes Greece’s active participation and positive role in the Indo-Pacific and it is a matter of happiness that the European nation has decided to join the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative.
During Modi’s visit to Greece in August last year, India-Greece relations were elevated to ‘strategic partnership’. The two PMs also decided to increase cooperation in areas including pharma, medical devices, technology, innovation, skill development, agriculture and space.
“Our discussions today were very meaningful and useful. It is a matter of happiness that we are rapidly moving towards the goal of doubling bilateral trade by 2030. We identified several new opportunities to give new energy and direction to our cooperation,” Modi said.
He said, “Today we identified several new initiatives to give a modern form to these relations. We discussed concluding the migration and mobility partnership agreement between the two countries as soon as possible. This will further strengthen our people-to-people relations.”
The Greek Prime Minister later inaugurated the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi on February 21. He stated that India is a leading democracy of global South and it is a consensus builder.
Addressing a gathering of international delegates at the conference organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), which included several foreign ministers, mainly from European countries, Greek Prime Minister Kyrios Mitsotakis said that despite the Israeli war in Gaza “destabilising” plans for the India-Middle East Economic Corridor (IMEC), India and Greece should persevere with the “peace project”.
He said, “Ground-breaking projects like IMEC hold great promise to supercharge connectivity between India, the growth economies of the Middle East and Europe. To India I say, Greece is your natural doorstep to Europe and beyond,” adding that as the country controlling the world’s biggest merchant shipping fleet, Greece’s geographical position makes it an obvious partner in the project.
In his speech at the Raisina Dialogue, Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis said India and Greece had ancient and “civilisational” ties between them, praising the bilateral relationship as a “a partnership between the world’s oldest democracy [Greece] and the world’s largest democracy [India].”
“You are an example to the world which should be celebrated. A demonstration that democracy can deliver economic growth,” he said, referring to India’s democracy. “Strengthening partnership with India should be a cornerstone of Europe’s foreign policy, and this is certainly true for my country as well,” Mitsotakis added.
