“Today Greece is no longer the “sick” of Europe, but a fully developed pro-European actor in the European Council”, he emphasizes the former president of the European Council, Herman van Robey in an interview granted by APE-MPE shortly before his arrival in Thessaloniki for the awarding ceremony of the 4th Pan-European award “Empress Theofano”, on Thursday November 9, at the Rotunda monument in Thessaloniki, in the presence of the President of the Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou and other leading personalities from Greece and the rest of Europe.

“Today, Greece is no longer the “sick” of Europe thanks to the efforts of the governments and the Greek people themselves” Mr. Van Robey emphasizes, pointing out the solidarity of the Eurozone in this direction, drawing attention to the repetition of his mistakes past but also excluding the current position of our country in Europe.

Asked about the stormy developments in the Middle East, Herman van Robey says that the attack by Hamas on October 7 put the two-state solution back in time,” he notes that Israel will rightly want to prevent a repeat of what happened recently, however, the violation of humanitarian law threatens to nullify the support it received after the massacre of October 7 together with the continued rapprochement with the Arab world. He expresses the hope that one day there will be leaders on both sides who will realize the importance of continuing the historic Oslo Accords between Rabin and Arafat and characteristically says that “with Hamas, this cannot be done” and this is something that “many Arab leaders they realize it.”

Regarding the situation in Ukraine, the former president of the European Council believes that the war will not end soon and the EU should continue to support the country and its people, while regarding the relations between Brussels and Moscow he emphasizes that under “the current regime , things will never work between the EU and Russia’ as ‘all the bridges have been blown’.

An ardent supporter of the enlargement of the European Union since his tenure as President of the European Council, Herman van Robey points out that sooner or later the countries of the Western Balkans will have to join the EU, having previously carried out the necessary internal reforms, the resolution of the issues between them, while the “enlargement fatigue” of the member states themselves should be overcome. However, as far as Turkey is concerned, he emphasizes that this country is following its own separate path “and often against the EU in many areas”, he points out that the EU is more than a common market and estimates that Turkey would not want never be part of a political union.

Regarding refugees/immigrants, Herman van Robey describes the recent Agreement on Asylum and Migration as “an important step towards greater solidarity between member states and better protection of our external borders”.

In light of last summer’s devastating fires and floods in Greece and other countries around the world, Herman van Robey speaks of the importance of getting to the root of the problem of the climate crisis and brings back a proposal he says he made in 2010 and concerned the establishment of a European civil protection service that could act immediately in the event of such disasters.

Finally, for the Theofano Prize, which this year is awarded to the UN, in the name of its Secretary General Antonio Guterres, it underlines the important political and moral role of both the Organization itself and Mr. Guterres, while on the occasion of Russia’s position as a permanent member of the Security Council and its violation of the UN Charter, as it says, it proposes to remove the right of veto of certain countries.

It is recalled that the awarding of the “Empress Theophano” prize, which has now become an institution, this year focuses on the key role of humanitarianism, especially in the light of multilateralism as a catalyst for addressing global challenges.