On Thursday 3 April 2014, the opening session of the Inter-parliamentary Conference on the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the Common Defence and Security Policy (CFSP/CSDP), was held under the chairmanship of K. Tsiaras, Chairman of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Foreign Affairs of the Hellenic Parliament.

The President of the Hellenic Parliament, Evangelos Meimarakis, the chairman of the event, K. Tsiaras and the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, Elmar Brok addressed the conference. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Hellenic Republic, Evangelos Venizelos pronounced a speech entitled “Security challenges in Southern and Eastern Europe”, in which he also referred to the issue of Cyprus.

The second day (04.04) of the Inter-parliamentary Conference on the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the Common Defence and Security Policy (CSDP), hosted by the Hellenic Parliament resumed with the intervention by Baroness Catherine Ashton, the EU High Respresentative on Foreign Affairs and Security Policy in Europe with the subject: “Current priorities on the CFSP and CSDP, including the situation in Ukraine”. She noted that “de-escalation of the existing situation is a top priority for the EU, by exercising necessary pressure on Russia”.

The Greek Minister for National Defence, Dimitrios Avramopoulos emphasized in his speech that recent geopolitical developments point at the close link between home and foreign security, while he also referred to the issue of illegal migration. Maciej Popowski, Deputy Secretary General for Inter- Institutional Affairs of the European External Action Service (EEAS) assessed interaction with NATO as substantial.

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