The Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met at the Maximos Palace with the President of Latvia Edgars Rinkēvičs, who is making an official visit to Greece.

“Mr. President, it is my pleasure to welcome you to Athens. I also have very good memories of my visit to Riga last summer. I am particularly happy that we have built stronger and more meaningful bilateral relations in recent years.

I believe that the geopolitical challenges that we face in Europe these days are such as to necessitate stronger cooperation on many fronts. I really look forward to using this visit to identify additional areas of cooperation. It is my real pleasure to welcome you to Athens”, stressed the Prime Minister at the beginning of the meeting.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Prime Minister. It’s really great to be here in Athens. As I joked with the President of the Republic and with the President of the Parliament, we enjoy not just warm, but really warm hospitality. I would also say that our two countries have really very good and very friendly relations both bilaterally, but also in terms of EU and NATO issues.

Of course, next week we will be in Washington for the NATO Summit to discuss security, regional security, both in the east and in the south, support for Ukraine. But I would express my belief that all EU and NATO member countries should work together to address very serious security challenges, continue to support Ukraine, continue to address the challenges related to security in the Middle East.

I also believe that our two countries face similar challenges in their neighborhood, as well as in the area of ​​immigration. We find the use of immigration as a tool of hybrid warfare, a highly complex situation.

There are many issues to discuss, but in terms of bilateral cooperation, we were just discussing with the President of the Republic that we must definitely increase trade transactions. Undoubtedly, we also have to deal with the economy and trade relations”, noted the President of Latvia.

During the meeting, the strengthening of bilateral relations and the common challenges faced by Greece and Latvia, such as immigration and the efforts to instrumentalize it, were discussed. The importance of protecting European borders and effective management of migration flows was underlined.

Issues of European and international interest were also discussed, with an emphasis on the latest developments in Ukraine, in view of the upcoming NATO Summit that will take place in Washington (July 9-11) and marks the 75th anniversary of the Alliance’s founding.

In this context, the two leaders underlined the need to strengthen European defense. Kyriakos Mitsotakis informed Edgars Rinkēvičs about his joint initiative with his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk to create a European air defense shield to be financed with European resources and reiterated the need to strengthen the European defense industry.