Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has a series of meetings with foreign officials scheduled on Monday, including Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders at noon and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry at 15:00.
At 13:15 on Monday afternoon he is to meet Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and at 20:30 on Monday evening he will attend a dinner hosted by the foreign ministry at the Acropolis Museum, in honour of the participants of the International Conference on “Religious and Cultural Pluralism and Peaceful Coexistence in the Middle East” that begins earlier the same day.
Later in the week, the prime minister will also be meeting French President Francois Hollande during his two-day official visit to Athens on Thursday and Friday, at the invitation of President of the Hellenic Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos.
Commenting on the visit, government sources noted that it was important on many levels and had great importance for relations between Greece and France. Pointing out that Hollande had recently made a public statement supporting the Greek programme and a renegotiation of Greece’s debt, during a joint address to the European Parliament with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the sources said that Greece considered the French president an important ally in the negotiations on the debt, which will begin immediately after the end of the first review of the Greek programme.
This expectation was significantly reinforced by Hollande’s planned visit at the head of a large delegation of government officials and business people, showing that France is seeking to upgrade its relations with Greece, they added.
In addition to meeting Tsipras and addressing the Greek Parliament on Friday, Hollande will dine with President Pavlopoulos on the day of his arrival in Athens on Thursday.