Greece to open 1st embassy in RP

Greece will open its first embassy in the Philippines, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said yesterday.

Ambassador-designate of the Hellenic Republic George-Chrysostomos Nicolaidis visited Manila recently to open Greece’s first embassy in the country.

Nicolaidis informally told Philippine Ambassador to Greece Rigoberto Tiglao of his designation by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs last September.

The Greek envoy was in Manila for a week last November to assess the logistical requirements for opening an embassy in the Philippines.

"The opening of Greece’s resident mission will be a breakthrough in further developing relations between Greece and the Philippines," Tiglao said.

The Philippines set up its resident mission in Athens in 1988, but Manila had been covered only from Greece’s embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia. Filipinos traveling to Greece were issued appropriate visas by Greece’s Jakarta embassy or through the Spanish embassy in Manila.

"Although diplomatic relations between the Philippines and Greece were established way back in 1947, the establishment of resident missions in Manila and in Athens was firmed up only in 1987 in a meeting in the United Nations headquarters between then (DFA) Secretary Raul Manglapus and then Greek Foreign Minister Karoios Papoulias, now President of the Hellenic Republic," Tiglao said.