Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome you all, Foreign Ministers of the member states of the European – Mediterranean partnership and the new member states of the European Union, as well as the representatives of countries with which the EU has close relations

Before we begin, I would like to take this opportunity, speaking from Crete, which is at a crossroads at eastern side of the Mediterranean. I would like to take the opportunity to present you on behalf of the Presidency, the initiative on water. This refers to the Mediterranean region and this is an initiative launched at Johannesburg.

This initiative highlights the importance of water for economic development, for combating poverty, for peace and safety, and this is something that we often underestimate. A crisis due to water may be a threat to development, to the environment and to peace and stability.

To rise to the challenge however, we have to give a high priority to water in our agenda and our policies. That is why the Greek Presidency has placed the environment very high on the list of priorities for the external relations of the EU. We have several initiatives in this direction. Greece is leading as regards the Mediterranean aspect of this initiative for water and life, and it includes countries in the Balkans.

Our intention is that the Mediterranean side of this initiative would lead to a strategy in order to achieve not only the overall objective, but to take account of particularities, national and regional.

A second initiative is action to promote European diplomacy for the environment and sustainable development, and I am referring to environmental diplomacy. In this context, we organize together with the World Bank an international conference on sustainable development and peace, a common waters, common future, common knowledge. All these initiatives are at the heart of our policy, on multilateral action and cooperation, multilateral interventions and multilateral participation.

Dear colleagues, Foreign policy is changing. More and more we have to work on crisis management and competition for limited natural resources. This is clear, this is the outcome of scientists in this area. The different pieces of the puzzle are falling in place.

In contrast to the conventional puzzle that is a stable one, if we look at the present situation, we realize that the situation as regards the environment is constantly changing. That is why our policy should reflect this.

I believe that through this initiative, the European Union and in particular the Mediterranean aspect of this partnership, gives us an opportunity to rise up to our international obligations and commitments.

And I would like to invite you in this context and we have several bilateral and multilateral programs that we can use in order to make the most of existing resources, given the various programs that are ongoing and I hope that the countries in the Balkans will participate actively in this initiative.

And I would like to invite you once again, to get some information on this initiative. I ask you to participate in this area. This is something that was discussed recently by the Ministers in charge of development issues and this has received the Commission’s support and President Prodi’s support.

Let me now move on to the next question. Today’s meeting, the first thing I would like to make a reference to is the great pleasure to have everybody here today, not just colleagues from the Euro-Mediterranean partnership but also the ten new member states that are now joining the European Union.

Before I say a few words, I would like to express on behalf of the European Union everybody’s support to the people of Algeria that suffered from the terrible earthquake on the 21st of May. This is a tragedy which we are very familiar with in this region, unfortunately, and the European Union is doing its best to contribute to help in this natural disaster.

I would like to also welcome you to Crete, which is the cradle of Minoan Civilization, one of the most ancient civilizations of humanity and in its historical process, it showed signs of cultural influence from different sides, Phoenicians, Arabs, Venetians, Turks and many others.

I do not think it is necessary for me to emphasize the importance of the Mediterranean region to us, the importance of contacts between Europe with Mediterranean countries in general.

Europe’s development cannot be completed only with the deepening and the enlargement towards the East and the North. We need to have a close link with the Mediterranean area and safeguard values such as peace, safety, human rights in the wider area.

Ladies and gentlemen, in November 1995, the Barcelona declaration was adopted and this took place in a spirit of euphoria in the context of the promotion of the peace process for the Middle East.

This is when the Barcelona process was initiated. This process is a living mechanism which can be constantly enriched with new elements. It can be revived to meet the political requirements of each given time, but of course we are always really committed to our objective, which is to maintain peace, prosperity and security in the Mediterranean.

In this context of Mediterranean and multilateral cooperation, we have a rather original exercise which presents a challenge to all of us. Very often, it is easy for us to go back to bilateral forms of cooperation because cooperation at the regional level very often appears to be very difficult as regards the negotiation process.

But up till the present, we have been able not only to continue our participation on the principles of the Barcelona process but also to enrich it, which was the case in Marseilles in the year 2000 and last year in Valencia in Spain.

During these 7 years of the Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, developments were more or less positive, depending on the circumstances. The political side of our cooperation is often an obstacle to achieving higher levels of cooperation. Our efforts to deal with problems such as terrorism, which unfortunately proves to remain a very topical issue following the latest attacks in Morocco and of course Moroccans have our full support and the Moroccan government has our full support.

There are also issues such as organized crime, natural disasters, illegal immigration. All these require a methodical cooperation.

So, let us see what the positive elements of our cooperation are: First of all, all partners, even in times of political difficulties in the region, remain committed to the Barcelona objectives. And we keep meeting in the context of this process.

We also have bilateral association agreements with our Mediterranean partners. We implement the “MEDA” programs successful. The promotion of measures to modernize the economies of our Mediterranean partners and modernize the economic sector in general. Regional cooperation in the fields of justice and external relations as well as cultural issues and in the field of energy.

In particular there was a meeting in Athens, a meeting of Energy Ministers for Euro-Med Ministers, and I would like to emphasize a very important program with the cooperation of Israelis and Palestinians.

I would also like to highlight our cooperation in the field of trade and an effort towards harmonization to create free trade areas by 2010. We need to emphasize the South – South cooperation with the Agadir Agreement which is a major achievement of these four Mediterranean partners.

These are the positive sides. But of course we should not try to improve the real picture. In spite of the political importance of our Euro-Med cooperation, I have heard from a lot of you that we seem to reach a stage of fatigue and in preparing our meeting in Italy, during the Italian Presidency, it is the time to rethink the data and to try to revive our cooperation, particularly since the Iraq crisis and at a time when terrorism and violence is still prevalent in this area.

As regards the political aspect, today the political aspect of the Barcelona process, the Middle East problem has often been the main thorny issue and we have found it hard at times to move on to other areas of cooperation, areas that were not directly linked to the Middle East question.

Today, however, we have some important developments. One of those is the acceptance of the roadmap, which was the product of a common effort of the international community in order to create two states, Israel and Palestine that would co-exist peacefully and safely, and to do so by the end of 2005.

I realize, dear colleagues, that there might be some hesitation or even suspicion on certain sides because it is not the first time we try to do this and we have had several hopes in the past without a concrete result. But the roadmap does provide us with such an opportunity and with certain concrete steps to take.

It is very important for us to continue without any delay in the implementation of the roadmap and to do so with determination. This is a window of opportunity. That should not be lost, as was the case in the past. And we should all demonstrate the required political will. This means leaving disagreements behind us so that we can work toward peace in this region.

Apart from that, we should welcome the fact that in the United Nations, there was a vote in favor of Resolution 1483, which is a turning point and it is the reflection of a new spirit of cooperation in the international community.

The EU and the Greek Presidency worked hard to ensure that the United Nations would play an important role in the process of political and economical reconstruction in Iraq. And the political representative presents us with a good basis in order to move towards a transitional Iraqi administration. We are looking forward to the cooperation of all neighboring countries to maintain sovereignty, territorial integrity and stability of Iraq.

Of course the enlargement of the European Union provides us with a new framework. It is the new neighbors’ initiative which we hope will promote even further the objectives of our political cooperation. We believe that we will need to find ways of further cooperation, of increased cooperation.

There is an added interest of the EU as regards its neighbors and of the neighbors as regards cooperation with the EU. And we believe that this offers new opportunities. It is in the interest of all of us to continue this effort and to do so in the context of course of Barcelona.

The initiative of new neighbors will provide us with a new momentum, we believe. And I would like to highlight three areas of this common initiative that do present us with certain difficulties but that do need to be promoted. And I am referring to the economic, social and political dimensions of our cooperation. And as we pointed out on the 17th of April in Athens, these are important aspects.

What we want to see is a wider area based on the values of peaceful coexistence, freedom, democracy, safety and prosperity. That is why we would like to reinforce the Barcelona context and in particular, the contacts with other institutions within our societies.

Today and tomorrow, we will have an opportunity to talk about the parliamentary dimension through the integration of this aspect in the Barcelona process to ensure that we have a real cooperation between Parliaments.

We would also like to make sure that our societies move closer to each other. We had an opportunity a few days ago, in Chania, in Crete, to hold a meeting, a forum of NGOs for the dialogue between Mediterranean societies, civil societies that is. Through this meeting, the creation of an observatory was proposed, an observatory of NGOs  and dialogue of cultures.

Finally, I would like to make reference to an initiative that goes beyond the context of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation that is of great interest. This is the dialogue between representatives of women, both from the Palestinian and the Israeli side. I am referring to the “Jerusalem Link Initiative”. It is a NGO initiative and a meeting was held here in Crete some days ago.

I am referring to this because my own personal experience as regards relations between Greece and Turkey and Greek – Cypriots and Turkish – Cypriots recently, makes it clear how important it is for our relations and for any peace process to ensure the support of simple citizens, the support of our societies. And I believe that we have to highlight this aspect even more in our cooperation.

The foundation of this cooperation will be a systematic intercultural dialogue and I hope that we will be able to adopt the principles of this dialogue in our meeting. And we are also talking about an academic dialogue or a dialogue between religious leaders. It should go beyond that, to cover topics that are of interest to our citizens but may be controversial even and we have to prepare new generations for a new era of understanding and peace.

Ladies and gentlemen, finally, I would like to say that the Euro-Mediterranean partnership is a priority for the enlarged Europe and I would like to emphasize the fact that what I just referred to is in fact the agenda that we are going to discuss today and tomorrow.

Before concluding, however, I would like to first of all, and given that we are talking about culture, to congratulate our neighboring country Turkey for two recent successes. First of all, the Eurovision Song Contest, they got the first prize there, so, congratulations on that. And they had another success at Cannes. Their film “Uzak” got a prize there. So, I congratulate Turkey on this cultural distinction.