The Consulate General in Boston visited earlier by Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis, during his stay in the USA. The minister spoke with the consulate staff and thanked them for their work. “Serving the expatriate is a priority, which is why we are speeding up the digitization process of consular services” is underlined in a post by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on social media.

Earlier, he met with the founding members of the Greek innovation network. The discussion focused on innovative start-ups and foreign investments in technology, with the minister developing the measures taken to enhance the attractiveness of Greece as an investment destination and highlighting the role and voluntary efforts of the members of the Greek innovation network in building bridges between technological entrepreneurship in Greece and innovation hubs in America.

Later today, Mr Gerapetritis will participate as a keynote speaker at a Harvard University Center for European Studies event.

He will also participate in a discussion with academics and students at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

He will then have contacts with researchers and scientists of Greek origin, while at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) he will meet Greeks who are active in the field of innovation and start-ups.

Finally, Mr Gerapetritis will have contacts with representatives of the Greek diaspora.

It is noted that the minister went to Boston after completing his participation in the High Level Week of the 78th General Assembly of the United Nations Organization.

Yesterday, Sunday, he met with former US presidential candidate and longest serving governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis. The meeting took place in a cordial atmosphere at the Dukakis home in Brookline, Boston. Mr. Gerapetritis thanked the veteran Greek-American Democratic politician on behalf of the Greek State for his contribution to promoting Greek-American relations, stating that everyone in Greece is proud of his career and that Michael Dukakis is a role model for the younger generations of the Greek-American community. . During the meeting, the discussion focused on the developments in Greece and the improvement of the economic climate in the country. The phenomenon of climate change and the need for global action to deal with its consequences were also discussed. The Minister of Foreign Affairs referred to Greece’s positions on the climate crisis, as they were formulated in the recent speech of the Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, to the UN. For his part, Mr. Dukakis expressed his interest in Thessaly, given that Larissa was the birthplace of his mother, Efterpis Bouki-Dukakis, who was the first Greek woman to graduate from an American university (Baites College in his state Maine). Mr. Gerapetritis informed the veteran politician about Greece’s positions on foreign policy issues and discussed with the governor the developments on the European continent and the course of Greek-American relations.

Also, yesterday the minister met with the founders of the scientific organization Hellenic Insitute of Advanced Studies (HIAS), focusing on scientific diplomacy, new areas of cooperation with the Diaspora, climate change, disaster prevention, green transition. Mr Gerapetritis looks forward to the constructive interaction with the Greek scientific diaspora, underlining its pivotal role for the development of Greece, as stated in another post on social media.