Strengthening partnership with India should be cornerstone of Europe's foreign policy: Greek PM

"We are your natural doorstep to Europe and beyond," he said, calling the IMEC as a "peace project". "The war in Gaza and the turmoil in the Middle-East is undoubtedly destabilising but it has not undermined the profound and powerful logic behind the IMEC," he said, noting that the stakeholders in the project must work tirelessly to implement the project.

"The IMEC is a peace project which can bring peace and prosperity," Mitsotakis said. On Ukraine, the Greek leader said it is not a local war on European soil. "Ukraine is much more than a local war on European soil. It is a brutal challenge to international stability and the international rules-based order that India has supported and has every interest in maintaining it," he said.

"We all have a responsibility to use the power we have on the international stage and none of us can afford to sit on the sidelines," he said. "I am convinced on Ukraine that India has an important role to play. It has a voice that should be heard. Our common humanity and interconnectedness are inescapable…the Hindu scriptures put it so powerfully that the World is One Family," Mitsotakis said.

Delving into major geopolitical challenges, he said Indo-Pacific is a major area of focus for the European Union. The Greek leader also talked about challenges facing democracies and democratic values. Society functions best when all its citizens are equal and have the right to share in the running of the state, he said. "We must, if necessary, own up to our mistakes, but above all we must listen to each other with mutual respect and without preaching or exhibiting any sense of moral superiority," he said.

Democracy can work best if all our citizens have the information they need to make informed decisions in the ballot boxes, he said. On India-Greece ties, Mitsotakis said good progress has been made. "We are at an unique moment of mutually beneficial opportunities — one in which Greece, given its geographic, cultural and strategic proximity, can act as an interlocutor between India and Europe and even between Global North and Global South as well as between East and West," he said.

The Raisina Dialogue is India’s flagship conference on geopolitics and geo-strategy. The theme of the three-day conference is "Chaturanga: Conflict, Contest, Cooperate, Create". In a brief address, Jaishankar said India’s growing interests in the Mediterranean region is an important facet of its steady rise. "The India-Greece partnership can surely serve as an anchor," he said.

"As India deepens its footprint abroad, Greece has emerged as a favourable destination. Our pharmaceutical industry, our agro-business and aviation are already established there," he said. "And the prime minister in his address mentioned the growing Greek investment and interest in India. We expect that a mobility agreement will bring us even closer. Raisina is good for business as well," Jaishankar added.