German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised to help the Western Balkans to reinvigorate their long-stalled campaign for European Union membership, a move aimed at easing regional tensions and fending off the influence of rival powers such as Russia.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Friday the European Union should offer the integration of all six nations of the Western Balkans into the EU by 2033 in what he called a “bold but necessary step.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to use military force against Greece, if it does not change its stance regarding the status of the Greek islands in the eastern Aegean, escalating the rhetoric against Athens even further, on the final day of the Turkish EFES-2022 exercise, attended by 37 countries.
The South East European Cooperation Process summit in Thessaloniki is an opportunity to “signal the great importance we attach to the Western Balkan countries and to restart the effort to anchor them in the safe harbor of Europe,” the prime minister said on Friday.
The United States has welcomed Greece’s announcement that it will host the ninth Our Ocean Conference in 2024.
The hosting of this year’s annual Summit of the South East European Cooperation Process (SEECP) in the northern port city of Thessaloniki bolsters Greece’s international image as a factor of stability in the Balkan and Eastern Mediterranean regions.
The arrest in Thessaloniki on Thursday of four people is linked to the seizure last month by Italian authorities in Calabria of 654 kilos of cocaine onboard a ship bound for northern port city.
Lightning storms in Albania flooded cities, caused power outages in the capital and led to the death of at least person Thursday, authorities said.
The next elections in Greece will “take place in due time, at the end of the four-year term,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday, warning that “Greece does not have any room to be swept away in a climate of inflationary requests and costless promises.”
About 300 students opposed to the establishment and deployment of university police blocked the entrance to the Zografou campus of the University of Athens on Friday morning.