Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos announced that former German MEP Jorgo Chatzimarkakis would be Greece’s ambassador-at-large.

“Mr. Chatzimarkakis is an extremely experienced European politician who had an impressive career in German politics and represented Germany for years in the European Parliament,” said Mr. Venizelos. “Of course, now he is active in Greek public life. But he had the courage, a few days ago, to accept the government’s invitation for enlisting all of the national forces, now that we are fighting to complete the adjustment programme, to exit the Memorandum, the troika and the crisis, and to pass into another phase, now that there are very serious problems and challenges in the field of foreign policy and security and defence policy.”

Mr. Venizelos stressed that Mr. Chatzimarkakis’ experience and contacts can help Greece on European strategy issues, on bilateral and multilateral level, with an emphasis on issues of economy and economic growth.

On his part, Mr. Chatzimarkakis said that now is a crucial period as Greece is exiting the memorandum. “I undertake to utilize on behalf of my homeland, the knowledge, experience and contacts that I have gained over the past 20 years in Brussels and Germany,” said Mr. Chatzimarkakis.