With the new president of the Council CERNKonstantinos Foudas, the Minister of Development met Takis Theodorikakos during his visit to the CERN facilities and experiment sites.

According to a statement, the minister was accompanied by the Deputy Minister of Development, responsible for Research and Innovation Zoi Rapti and the Secretary General of Research and Innovation Tassos Gaitanis, as well as the head of the Permanent Greek Mission to the UN, Ambassador Ioannis Gikas.

The minister stated after his visit:

“We warmly thank the director general for the invitation and for the opportunity to witness first-hand the enormous work carried out by CERN over the past 70 years. Greece, as a founding member of CERN, strongly supports the need to maintain its prominent position as a global a leader in high energy physics research.

Because of the significant knock-on effects that CERN’s basic research has on research and innovation in Europe, and the fact that it trains and supplies European industry with thousands of top engineers and scientists, we believe it is fundamental to maintain CERN’s leadership role. That is why we strongly support the construction of the future circular core despite the economic consequences, which as a percentage of GDP are equal for all Member States.

As an EU Member State we also argue that the EU should support CERN as much as possible, given that CERN is vital for the EU’s strategic autonomy and the preservation of its industrial base.”

It is recalled that Greece participates in the experiment and supports CERN as a founding member. A total of 200 Greeks work and participate in various scientific capacities. The financial assistance is 12 million euros and is paid by the general secretariat of Research and Innovation of the Ministry of Development.