President of the Hellenic Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos received former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in Athens on Tuesday, expressing hope that the U.S. will continue the policies of support for Greece adopted by the previous administration, under former U.S. President Barack Obama.
He thanked Biden for recent statements alluding to the need to make Greece’s debt sustainable and also referred to the need for harmonious relations between the EU and the U.S. According to Pavlopoulos, it was common knowledge that the United States, in order to be able fulfill its planetary role, “must work alongside an institutionally and economically strong European Union, with its own valuable contribution to the shared affair of peace, democracy, social justice and culture.”
Biden said that the U.S. has confidence in the Greeks, with which it shares common values, and that the U.S. has a direct interest in Greece’s success. The U.S. wants Greece to escape the crisis, resume growth and once again assume a leading role in this part of the world, he added.
The same feelings were shared by the new U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Biden said, urging the Greek government to give the new U.S. administration a little more time. The stance of the U.S. government has not changed and American citizens have the same feelings, he said.
He was especially warm in his references to the Greek-American community and referred to the support given by the Obama administration for the transition of the Greek economy. It was now 70 years since the Marshall Plan and Americans still felt the same way about Greeks, he added.
Biden especially thanked Pavlopoulos for consenting, as president of a republic, to receive a former vice-presidentand again expressed his “sincere faith in the Greeks”. Replying, Pavlopoulos said it was a “habit” in Greece “to always honor -and we do this both for our own people and for foreign leaders- all those that left a positive imprint in history and still have much to offer.”
Source: ANA