Officials from the General Directorate of National Defence Policy and International Relations (GDNDPIR) of the Ministry of National Defence (MoD) and the corresponding General Directorate of the Austrian Ministry of Defence met in Vienna on 30 May and 1 June 2023, in order to complete their action on: “The Instrumentation of the Migration-Refugee Issue and the Role of the Armed Forces”.

This action was initiated with the 1st Experts’ Workshop, in Alexandroupolis, from 28 to 29 June 2022, and continued with the 2nd Experts’ Workshop in Vienna from 28 to 30 September 2022, within the framework of initiatives of the two General Directorates to strengthen the bilateral defence relations between Greece and Austria.

The culmination of the whole action was the signing of a Declaration titled: “Countering Instrumentalisation of Illegal Migration in the framework of Hybrid Threats” between the General Director of National Defence Policy and International Relations Dr. Constantinos Balomenos, and his Austrian counterpart Dr. Arnold Kammel, in the presence of the Greek Ambassador to Austria, Ms Katherini Koika.

During the cooperation of the two delegations, it was also decided to present in September the conclusions of the action both to the Ministries of Defence (MoDs) of the two countries and to our partners in the European Union (EU), as well as to continue even more intensive the bilateral defence cooperation between the two General Directorates.

At the conclusion of this activity, a special event was the decoration of Dr. Konstantinos Balomenos by the Federal President of the Republic of Austria, Alexander Van der Bellen, with the “Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold for Services to the Republic of Austria”, for his contribution to strengthening defence-military relations between Greece and Austria. This highest political honour of the Austrian Presidency was attributed to Dr. Konstantinos Balomenos by his counterpart Dr. Arnold Kammel as an indication of the sealing of relations between Greece and Austria.